Interest in commodities as an investable asset class has been gradually climbing over the last several years, as new means of accessing these securities have turned investors on to the potential return enhancement and diversification benefits. While the potential rewards of investing in commodities are tremendous–as evidenced by the huge price run-ups over the last year–the risks are substantial as well. While commodities are increasingly ubiquitous and are relatively simple to identify or understand–everyone could identify corn or sugar–there are numerous nuances that complicate the process of establishing exposure to natural resources [see also Three Things Wall Street Journal Didn’t Tell You About Commodities].
Much of the confusion is due to the challenges with accomplishing exposure to spot prices–and misunderstandings over the alternatives, including stocks or ETFs of producing companies and futures contracts. Fortunately, there is no shortage of free resources dedicated to making this asset class easier to understand, analyze, and ultimately buy. Below, we profile 50 commodity blogs, Web sites, and tools that are helpful for all walks of commodity investors, from beginners to seasoned pros (sign up for the free commodityHQ newsletter):
Broad Commodity BlogsThese blogs take a look at commodity investments across all different families, including agricultural commodities, precious metals, and energy resources:
- Seeking Alpha provides a list of ‘opinion leaders’ in the commodity space which could provide valuable insight.
- MineWeb has news and information about a wide range of commodities from gold and silver to uranium and copper.
- Inside Futures includes articles and posts on commodities and futures trading.
- Daily Futures has information about data releases as well as stats on a wide variety of commodities.
- Trading Charts has a plethora of information regarding virtually every commodity including many of the lesser-known ones such as milk or flakseed.
- Commodity Online had charts, news, and data on a number of the world’s most important commodities.
- Chuck’s Commodities Blog on About.com provides helpful information on a variety of commodities and markets — even Florida’s orange juice trade.
- Safe Haven discusses a variety of commodities with a special focus on precious metals.
- Commodity Blog takes a look at a number of different commodities, offering investors technical insights and price info from the exchanges.
- Commodity Bull Market focuses on news that impacts the broad commodities market although gold and oil seem to be pretty popular.
- Top Commodities Today offers investors technical insight and robust analysis of a variety of commodity markets.
These sites focus on a particular commodity niche for investment.
Agricultural/Softs
- Agrimoney takes an in-depth look at agricultural commodities such as grains, softs, and livestock.
- The Beef Site focuses on, you guessed it, the cattle markets of the world.
- Commodity News focuses in soybeans and palm oil, pulling in data from a variety of sites to obtain its information.
- Commodity News Zone offers investors a number of news reports on commodities such as corn, soybeans, and wheat, just to name a few.
- Sugar Industry focuses on the sweet commodity and all its derivatives including ethanol, white sugar, raw sugar, and its cane.
- Jim Rogers Blog tracks the musings of legendary commodity investor Jim Rogers, the famous author and co-founder of the Quantum Fund.
- Corn & Soybean Digest takes an in-depth look at two of the most important softs in the world.
- Gold And Silver Blog Takes an in-depth look at two of the world’s most famous precious metals.
- RareMetalsBlog is a great resource for investors seeking more information on the increasingly important rare earth metals market.
- BaseMetals.com focuses on metals such as copper, tin, zinc, and aluminum, giving investors valuable insight into these important commodity markets.
- Copper Investing News provides up to date information on copper investing and what influences the base metal’s market.
- Gold Basics focuses on the precious metals market taking a look at both mining firms and the futures market.
- Platinum Investing News provides real time information regarding the world’s priciest precious metal, platinum.
- Metal Miner looks at companies that mine precious and industrial metals as well as steel producers.
- Alternative Energy is a quality site for investors looking for news on renewable technologies such as solar, wind, and biofuels.
- OilPrice.com focuses on energy commodities such as Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and alternative sources.
- RigZone is a site that provides the latest information in oil and gas markets.
- The Oil Drum offers information on oil, as well as discussion on energy issues, especially as they relate to oil.
- 321 Energy compiles news stories from around the world that target any of the key energy markets including oil, coal, and alternatives.
- The Energy Report focuses on oil, uranium, lithium, and MLPs, giving investors news on a wide variety of topics in the energy space.
- New Energy World Network has a wealth of information regarding deals, funds, and companies in the alternative energy world.
The following list contains links to some of the world’s most important commodity exchanges from all over the world.
- CME Group is arguably the most important commodity exchange in the world trading everything from corn and soybeans to gold and copper.
- London Metal Exchange is the world’s premier non-ferrous metals market, specializing in copper, tin, and nickel just to name a few.
- ICE is the home of numerous important energy contracts including Brent and WTI crude.
- Dubai Mercantile Exchange is the home of Oman Crude oil futures, the most popular benchmark in the Middle East
- Kansas City Board of Trade specializes in hard-red winter wheat, a version of wheat that trades at a premium to ‘soft’ wheat.
The following sites all have great tools that every commodity investor should bookmark ASAP.
- AssetCorrelation is a go-to place for investors looking to see how in-step their investments are likely to move.
- HardAssetInvestor has a wealth of charts on a wide range of commodities.
- ETF Database has an excellent screener that investors can use to pinpoint their commodity exposure in exchange-traded product form.
- Finviz has some very interesting ‘heatmap’ data on a wide range of commodities.
- EnergyandCapital has a very interesting ‘peak oil clock’ and has reports and videos about a variety of energy commodities.
- Traders Log focuses on widely-traded commodities, giving investors a variety of charting options for a number of products.
- Oil Trader’s Blog allows you an inside look at the trades and insights from the economist Henrique Simoes.
- Crude Oil Trader takes a technical look at the markets with a special focus on gold and oil futures.
- Morningstar has a great list of data regarding a wide range of commodities including futures contract volume and open interest figures.
- Bloomberg has all the important commodities and their spot prices on one page and even has information regarding major commodity indexes as well.
- Commodity Trader provides helpful information on the futures market, adding analysis that can help technical traders sift through the news.
- Futures Mag is a site that is built for traders; giving them charts, analysis and technical metrics that can be extremely useful.
- The DoE offers investors a number of useful links to reports on some of the most widely-traded energy contracts in the world.
Found a good resource that we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
