Visual Guide to Financial Markets

Indexes Revisited

When you hear about how commodity markets are doing, chances are that you won’t find out the actual prices at which raw materials trade. Instead, you’ll be told all about commodity futures. That’s because the contracts change hands more actively and price data are more readily available in real time.

It’s the same for indexes that track commodities as a group. Though you may recall the spot index cited earlier, the most widely followed indicators are based on the prices of futures. Bloomberg has a series of these indexes as do Standard & Poor’s and other providers.

This is one example of how derivatives-based indexes shed light ...