This book is a comprehensive and practical guide to the principal commodity markets written by an experienced
practitioner. Commodity markets are by no means perfect; at best they are opaque. Participants who blindly apply
complex theoretical models to these markets often come to grief. This book gives the market newcomer a framework to facilitate successful commodity price risk management, learning from others' past mistakes, and taking into account the real and tangible nature of the physical underlying. Commonalities with and differences to other
financial markets are discussed. The impact of fundamental commodity concepts such as contango, backwardation, physical delivery and storage on paper commodity markets are explored. The largest commodity markets (namely metals, energy and agricultural products) are presented in detail, together with their specific characteristics.