Learn how commodity markets work

26 explainers, each answering one question in plain English with a worked example from the site's own data and a graphic. Start with what a commodity is, then why "the price of copper" is really several prices.

• Cheaper than 1974: the commodities that fell in real terms
  17 of 43 benchmark prices cost a quarter or less of their inflation-adjusted peak, and 13 of those peaked before 1980. Which ones, and how to read it.
• Commodity benchmarks explained: Brent, arabica, TSR20
  A benchmark is one grade at one place whose price prices everything else. See how Brent, arabica coffee and TSR20 rubber were quoted in August 2026, and why.
• Commodity supercycles: what they are and when
  A supercycle is a decades-long swing in real commodity prices, not a spike. See the World Bank base metals index from 1960 to 2026 and what copper did in it.
• Contango and backwardation explained
  Contango means later delivery costs more; backwardation means it costs less. Learn the cost-of-carry mechanism and read it off US gas prices from 2025 and 2026.
• Critical minerals and the energy transition
  Electrification swaps metal for fuel, and the risk sits in refining rather than mining. Copper, aluminum, lithium and cobalt, with 2025 output and 2026 prices.
• El Nino and La Nina: which commodities they hit
  El Nino and La Nina shift Pacific rainfall. See which crops sit in the exposed belt, with 2023 and 2024 production shares for palm oil, cocoa, coffee, rubber.
• FOB, CIF and Incoterms in one page
  FOB stops at the ship's rail; CIF adds freight and insurance to the destination port. What each Incoterm covers, and how to compare rice and palm oil quotes.
• How a futures contract settles
  Most futures positions are offset before expiry; the rest end in delivery or cash. Notice days, warrants and margin, with one cocoa lot priced out in full.
• How to read the World Bank Pink Sheet
  The Pink Sheet is the World Bank's monthly commodity price table. Learn what each row means, what the indices are based on, and read the August 2026 numbers.
• HS codes: how goods are classified for trade
  An HS code is the customs number that decides a good's tariff and its trade statistics. Learn the six-digit structure using green and roasted coffee in 2024.
• Nominal vs real prices: adjusting for inflation
  A nominal price is what was quoted at the time; a real price restates it in one year's money. Why cocoa's 2025 record was half its 1977 peak in 2024 dollars.
• Peak oil vs peak copper: is it the same idea?
  Hubbert's peak is about the rate of output of a finite resource. What the production record shows for oil, gas, copper and 19 other materials, and what the copper record adds.
• Peru's anchoveta swing: why one fishery moves the fishmeal market
  Peru made 0.51 million tonnes of fishmeal in 2023 and 1.17 million in 2024. The rest of the world barely changed, and that gap explains the price.
• Producing vs exporting vs processing
  Three questions, three answers: Brazil grows the most coffee, but Switzerland leads roasted coffee exports. How to read origin, trade and processing tables.
• Reserves vs resources: what the two words mean
  Resources are what exists in usable form; reserves are the part that pays to extract today. USGS definitions, with copper, rare earths, vanadium and oil figures.
• Sanctions and commodities: how embargoes reroute trade
  Embargoes rarely remove a barrel from the world; they change who buys it, at what discount and after how long a voyage. The mechanism, with 2024 trade shares.
• Spot vs futures: what the price of copper means
  The spot price buys metal now; a futures price fixes a date. See how the two are tied together, and what copper at $14,326 a tonne in August 2026 refers to.
• Stocks-to-use: the ratio that predicts grain prices
  Stocks-to-use divides ending inventory by a season's consumption. Learn why the price response is non-linear, using world corn balances from 2021/22 to 2026/27.
• The 2022 energy shock: gas, oil and coal prices
  European gas hit $70.04 per mmbtu in August 2022 and Australian coal $430.8 a tonne in September. Why gas and coal moved so much further than crude oil did.
• The 2024 cocoa spike: why chocolate got expensive
  Cocoa went from $3.28 a kilogram in 2023 to a record $10.75 in January 2025. The harvests, the trees and the futures market behind the move, and the fall after.
• The 2025–26 metals rally: gold, silver and copper's different records
  Gold hit $5,020 an ounce in February 2026, a genuine inflation-adjusted record. Silver and platinum spiked further in percentage terms and then fell back; copper and tin kept climbing.
• The reserves-to-production ratio, explained
  R/P divides reserves by one year of output to give years of supply. Worked through for oil and copper, with why it has not fallen steadily and what it cannot tell you.
• Vegetable oils: a family of prices that move together, up to a point
  Palm, sunflower, rapeseed and coconut oils are close substitutes, yet only some of their prices track each other. Who makes them, and how their prices compare since 2021.
• What is a commodity? Fungibility, grades and price
  A commodity is a good sold by specification, not by brand. Learn how fungibility and grading work, and see three rice grades priced apart in August 2026.
• Who trades commodities: the ABCDs and the majors
  The firms between the farm and the factory: what ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Glencore and Vitol do, how they earn a margin, and the size of the flows they handle.
• Why commodity prices spike (and then crash)
  Spikes happen when inelastic supply meets inelastic demand and thin stocks. Follow cocoa from $2.47 to $10.75 a kilogram and back down, month by month.