Commodity ~ nounAn article of trade or commerce, such as a mining product that can be processed and resold
Trading commodities at ShortsandLongs.com
It’s not just spread trading on shares or indices that ShortsandLongs.com offers. You can also spread bet on commodities such as Brent Crude, Light Crude, Gold and Silver.
Gold or Silver are like any other commodity – that is, they can be bought and sold for hedging or speculative purposes via a financial spread bet. ShortsandLongs.com quotes a spread around the live price for gold and customers can buy or sell at those prices.
Gold generally is looked on by some analysts as a safe haven in times of global financial turmoil and traditionally has risen in price when the stock markets have fallen and vice-versa. If you think that gold is overpriced and is going to fall in price, you would sell it at the bid price, and if you think that gold will go higher again you would buy at our offer price.
One way to trade gold is via a futures contract, meaning this contract stays open until the stated expiry date. Each futures contract for gold settles on the 3rd Friday of the previous month. i.e. July Futures contracts settle on the 3rd Friday of June. You have the option to roll it to the new expiry month to keep your trade open or close the trade to crystallise any profit or loss. You can, of course, close bets out before the stated expiry date. Another option is to trade the Daily Future which is a contract based off the future, but settles every day at the closing price at 9pm.
