Mastering the Commodities Markets

COMMODITY INDICESs

Many commodities market participants follow closely the movement of commodity indices, of which there are many. Some investment vehicles benchmark themselves against one or more of these indices. Discussed below are just two of the indices:

• The Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), now the S&P GSCI
• The Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI^®)

S&P GSCI

This is a measure of the performance of the commodities markets over time – it is similar to the FTSE 100 or the S&P 500 equity indices and is a tradable index consisting of 24 well-traded physical commodities active in the futures markets. It is a composite index of sector returns corresponding to a long-only, un-leveraged investment in a range of commodity futures. Originally ...