July 2007
Beginner
528 pages
13h 37m
English
Content preview from Getting Started in Commodities
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 1
What Is a Commodity
While this book covers a multitude of issues, it is designed to answer one central question: What is a commodity? This may seem like a difficult question to some people, but it's really quite simple. If you can touch it, see it, feel it, or eat it, it's a commodity. If you are driving through Texas and you see an oil field, there's a commodity being pumped out: oil. If you are cruising through miles of wheat fields in Kansas, then you are passing an agricultural commodity: wheat. If you are vacationing in Florida, you're sure to see fields filled with orange groves; once again, you are looking at a commodity: orange juice. Even when you find yourself in a jewelry store eyeing a beautiful gold chain, you are checking out a traded commodity: gold. Commodities are all around you, but not all commodities are traded.
Smart Trader Tip 
The process of trading a commodity is done typically in a trading pit located at one of the major commodity exchanges or by computerized trading, one of the predominant means to trade commodities today. A trade occurs when a buyer of the commodity and the seller of the commodity agree on a price for that commodity based upon a standardized unit for the commodity being bought or sold.
Lumber, wheat, crude oil, heating oil, natural gas, corn, copper, gold, sugar, and coffee are just a few of the commodities you may come across ...
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.