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Commodities
9 guides in Finabase Learn
- Asset classes explained: stocks, bonds, cash, real assets and more What an asset class is, how stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, commodities, currencies, crypto and derivatives differ, and what 19 years of ETF prices show.
- Commodities explained: energy, metals, crops and how to own them What commodities are, how energy, metals and agricultural markets differ, the ways to get exposure, and what 20 years of DBC prices show against stocks and the CPI.
- Commodity A basic, interchangeable raw good such as oil, gold, wheat or copper, traded in bulk on spot and futures markets.
- Contango A futures market in which later-dated contracts trade above nearer ones or the spot price, which erodes returns when rolling long positions.
- Crude Oil Unrefined petroleum, traded mainly as WTI and Brent futures, and a key driver of energy stocks and inflation.
- Futures roll Closing an expiring futures contract and opening one in a later month to keep a position, with the price gap as a cost or gain.
- Gold A precious metal traded as a commodity and held as a store of value and hedge, quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.
- Oil prices and the economy: WTI, Brent, gasoline and inflation How crude oil is priced, the difference between WTI and Brent, how oil reaches gasoline and CPI, and what 40 years of EIA price data show about booms and busts.
- Spot price The price for buying or selling a commodity, currency or other asset for immediate delivery, as opposed to a futures price for a later date.
Educational content, not investment advice. Finabase Learn explains how markets and tools work. It does not recommend any security or strategy, and examples are for illustration only. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Rules and figures are for the United States unless stated and can change — check the cited source before you act.