Tutorial Forex

While most people think of commodity traders as just a bunch of guys in Chicago the truth is that many different types of investors participate in the commodity markets. Obviously we have floor traders but we also have several types of upstairs traders.

One of the main types of upstairs traders in the commodity markets are the CTA or commodity trading advisors. They typically do a lot of long term trend following. The second major commodity trader is the global macro trader.

Next up are the global macro traders. They are probably the second largest group of commodity traders as they look to trade disparate and uncorrelated asset classes, as well as get a better picture of global imbalances.

One of the easiest to comprehend examples is that of the oil markets. When oil is climbing Mt Everest like Carl Lewis in the Olympics then you know that there will be some huge dislocations in the economy. Oil and oil service companies will be climbing like no ones business but other companies like airlines and trucking companies will be getting whacked like a rat in a mafia movie.

One area that also gets a ton of attention is that of precious metals. Precious metals have a small piece of the industrial machine but mostly are used as an inflation hedge and as an asset backed alternative currency as more and more of the fiat currencies look long term bankrupt.

After the shiny stuff we have the industrial metals. Things like copper, nickel, tin, iron, aluminum, zinc, and lead are all in this group. Cars, trucks, phones, computers, etc all have large amounts of industrial metals and are vital to the worlds economy. If you are not tracking industrial metals then you are missing out on one of the largest parts of the commodity complex and a vital part of the economy.

While many investors gloss over the agricultural commodities they shouldn’t. In the future agricultural commodities will only be increasing in importance as the worlds water supplies continue to diminish. If you are already monitoring demographic trends and overall supply demand you should also be following agricultural commodities.

Obviously commodities are huge part of the global economy. If you are not using and monitoring them you are missing out on some of the biggest puzzle pieces out there. If you are a global macro trader you need to be monitoring all the commodity complexes.