2.1 Commodity Market for Beginners: History, MCX & Futures
Where commodity trading came from, where your F&O rules were written, and the five rooms where every commodity price is made today.
About this lecture
Where did commodity trading come from, and where are commodity prices made today? A simple lecture for Indian traders starting Module 2 on commodities and real-world assets.
In this lecture, Pratham follows the market from the first futures exchange to the five places that set a commodity's price now.
You'll learn about:
- How commodities traded for 300 years: one contract, one exchange, one expiry
- The commodities inside your Nifty 50
- Osaka in 1730: the Dojima rice market and the first futures market
- Chicago in 1848: the Board of Trade standardises contracts, and where your F&O rules (margin, daily settlement, expiry and delivery) come from
- London in 1877: the London Metal Exchange and its ring
- Why gold had no price until 1971, when Nixon ended the $35 peg; oil futures in New York in 1983 and Brent in London in 1988
- India's Gold Control Act of 1968, and MCX opening in 2003 with its crude settling on the New York price
- What never changed: expiry, rolling and the spread; and the perpetual future, with no expiry and an hourly funding fee
- The five rooms where every commodity price is made: London, New York, Shanghai, Amsterdam and Mumbai
The module's roadmap follows: precious metals, energy and base metals.
Educational content only. Not investment advice.
MochaLearn is a free A to Z course on understanding and trading US stocks and commodities, built for Indian traders.
Key takeaways
- For 300 years a commodity traded as one contract on one exchange with one expiry; the rules Indian F&O runs on, margin, daily settlement, expiry and delivery, were written in Chicago in 1848.
- Gold had no market price until 1971; India's Gold Control Act kept gold in jewellery until 1990; MCX opened in 2003 and its crude settles on the New York price.
- Expiry, rolling and the spread never went away; the perpetual future replaces expiry with an hourly funding fee.
- Every commodity price is made in five rooms: London for spot gold, silver, LME metals and Brent; New York for COMEX, NYMEX and WTI; Shanghai for China's metal demand; Amsterdam for European gas; Mumbai for the MCX rupee price.