I know you can buy stocks in companies but I wanted to know if there is a place kind of like the movie "Trading Places" where you can buy and sell gold or oil and stuff like that.
2007-01-25 06:37:30 · 9 answers · asked by sardar615 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Investing
The guys in "Trading Places" were commodities brokers. You can't simply "buy" commodities. Imagine if you bought a 1000 bbls of oil and, due to your inexperience in the commodities market, the barrels are delivered to your door. There are plenty of good commodities funds that you can use in invest in gold or oil, but you'll never have access to the floor of the Exchange unless you're an employee of a trading firm.
2007-01-25 06:43:47 · answer #1 · answered by SuzeY 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Scott is correct. You can trade commodities through a futures/commodities broker. Also, SuzeY is a little mistaken. You can trade directly on the exchange floor, you have to buy/lease a seat on the exchange, which can be very expensive. Back about 15 years ago, a seat on the MidAm or MACE (MId America Commodity Exchange was $50,000 - they trade mini contracts). If you do a websearch, you can find commodities brokers. I really like Alaron Trading.
Also, the only people that hold contracts till expiration are producers or end-users. And they don't deliver 1000 bbls of crude oil to your front door, it's delivered in the form of warehouse receipts.
As Scott stated trading futures is not for the timid or faint of heart, you need to have a very high risk tolerance level and you need to be very well funded; one bad trade and you could literally lose everything you own. You really need to know what you're doing if you want to trade futures.
2007-01-26 09:43:59 · answer #2 · answered by 4XTrader 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have traded commodities for many years. If you are interested in trading from the floor of an exchange then you will need to go through membership, find a clearing firm, lease a seat and open an account. Although this seems exciting and fun many of the exchanges have turned to electronic trading which is carried out through many different platforms.
You can also apply to a "prop house" to trade for a company. They provide you with training and capital(if needed) and you're on your way(if they hire you). Gold and oil are traded in New York at the New York Mercantile Exchange but you can trade them from anywhere in the world electronically.
Commodities are fast paced and dangerous so be very careful and do/learn your research before you dive in!
2007-01-25 07:57:58 · answer #3 · answered by Scott O 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
zecco and sogo stay away from them. as for Gold and Oil. I have very strict points to enter into (before buying again). I bought gold at $48 well over a year ago and sold it in the $58 range (waited too long) Oil/energy also bought but sold out of it when the commiecrats took control. I am still looking for more drops in Oil this spring after that.... In both of these patience is a virtue.
2007-01-25 13:20:49 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can buy a gold fund or an Energy fund. Both a relatively high risk sector funds and I would not recommend them for a new investor. If you were an experienced investor, the max I would recommend would be 5% to 15% of your total investable assets. But this next 12 months could be rough for both of those investments.
2007-01-25 06:56:21 · answer #5 · answered by MR MONEY 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One way is to trade futures contracts on the commodity exchanges. Not that difficult. grab a book from the bookstore about futures and commodities. To actually do it you open an account with a commodities/futures broker. Commodities/futures broker and the commodity/futures/mercantile exchanges will also send you free educational materials on investing and trading commodities, since they want to polularize that game.
Another way is to buy ETF (funds traded like stocks) that represent commodites. Look for them but some of them are GLD invested in gold and USO - invested in oil. These are super easy to use since you buy them through any stock broker. ZECCO.COM is a broker with $0.00 commissions. sogoinvest.com have commissions $1 to $3 but let you open an account with no minimum requirements.
A third way to invest in commoditiess is buying stocks fo companies who mine, them drill them, process them and market them. Why. These are companies themselves invested havily in these commodities not only as a price of the commodity (and their earnigns and shares go up when the goos become expensive) but they can bring you profit even when there is no or little movement int he price of the commodity since they still continue to make money from regular opperations. In other words whether oil is expensive or cheap ExonMobil for example will always make money on processing it and marketing its products.
2007-01-25 07:04:15 · answer #6 · answered by investor 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hi there !! its always best and the best is invest in commodities.. There is very very less chance of losing our money.. Commodities are safer investments.. For now invest as much on gold..as gold is skyrocketing.
2016-05-23 22:58:54 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
1
2017-03-06 03:57:33 · answer #8 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can also buy gold by buying the companies that mine for it.
Here is one of my favs
AUY http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=auy
2007-01-25 07:30:40 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋