A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets as commodities.
A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodity market for centuries for price risk management.
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth merchants. Historically, merchant banks' purpose was to facilitate and/or finance production and trade of commodities, hence the name "merchant". Few banks today restrict their activities to such a narrow scope.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is a global derivatives marketplace based in Chicago and located at 20 S. Wacker Drive. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, an agricultural commodities exchange. For most of its history, the exchange was in the then common form of a non-profit organization, owned by members of the exchange. The Merc demutualized in November 2000, went public in December 2002, and merged with the Chicago Board of Trade in July 2007 to become a designated contract market of the CME Group Inc., which operates both markets. The chairman and chief executive officer of CME Group is Terrence A. Duffy, Bryan Durkin is president. On August 18, 2008, shareholders approved a merger with the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX are now markets owned by CME Group. After the merger, the value of the CME quadrupled in a two-year span, with a market cap of over $25 billion.
Singapore Exchange Limited is a Singapore-based exchange conglomerate, operating equity, fixed income, currency and commodity markets. It provides a range of listing, trading, clearing, settlement, depository and data services. SGX Group is also a member of the World Federation of Exchanges and the Asian and Oceanian Stock Exchanges Federation.
The Baltic Exchange is a membership organisation for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts.
Frederick Ferdinand Wolff, CBE, TD was a British athlete, winner of gold medal in 4 × 400 m relay at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited operates a range of equity, commodity, fixed income and currency markets through its wholly owned subsidiaries The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (SEHK), Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited (HKFE) and London Metal Exchange (LME).
Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC is one of Europe's largest business and financial information companies which has interests in business and financial publishing and event organization. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index until it was acquired by private equity groups, Astorg and Epiris, in November 2022.
Wilhelm Ralph Merton was a prominent and influential German entrepreneur, social democrat, and philanthropist. Among his most notable accomplishments, he was a founder of the University of Frankfurt and Metallgesellschaft AG, which became the largest non-ferrous mining company in the world and the second largest company in Germany.
Dr. Heinz C. Schimmelbusch is an Austrian businessman, serving as the chief executive officer of AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V.
Sucden is a French-based commodity broker of soft commodities and other financial products headquartered in Paris. The firm started as a sugar broker and is now amongst the world leaders with a market share of around 15% in volume, or 9.5 million tonnes. It has offices in a number of countries around the world, including London and Hong Kong.
An exchange, bourse, trading exchange or trading venue is an organized market where (especially) tradable securities, commodities, foreign exchange, futures, and options contracts are bought and sold.
Marex is a UK-based diversified global financial services platform, connecting clients to global energy, metals, agricultural and financial markets. Across its businesses, Marex provides high value add services in Market Making, Execution and Clearing, Hedging and Investment Solutions, Price Discovery and Data & Advisory.
Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange was an electronic commodities exchange established in Hong Kong for the trading of commodity futures, options and other financial derivatives. The exchange was originally pitched as a platform to trade oil futures. In fact, it ended up trading mainly silver and gold futures.
David Munro Anderson is a Scottish businessman with a distinguished career in the City of London. He was closely involved in the development of the futures contract trading industry in London. Anderson was chairman of the formation committee for the International Petroleum Exchange, joint chairman of the formation committee for the Baltic International Freight Futures Exchange and former vice-chairman of the London Commodity Exchange. As a director of the Securities and Investments Board (SIB) he played a key role in implementing the Financial Services Act 1986 in the United Kingdom.
Claude Dauphin was a French billionaire businessman and executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV, a company specialising in commodity trading. In addition to being one of the company's founding partners, Dauphin had previously served as Trafigura's chairman and CEO. In March 2013 his net wealth was estimated at $1 billion by Forbes. Dauphin died from cancer in a hospital in Bogota at the age of 64 after a two-year struggle with lung cancer.
Clarkson PLC, often referred to simply as Clarksons, is a provider of shipping services, and is headquartered in London. In 2011, Lloyd's List described the company's shipbroking service as the "undisputed heavyweight of the shipbroking market". It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
C. Tennant, Sons & Company was a British merchant bank that was prominent in metals and minerals markets, and also played a key role in development of the Gulf States in their early years of independence. The firm's antecedents go back to the early 19th century. In the early 1960s it had its main offices at Harp Lane in the City of London as well as offices in New York, San Francisco, São Paulo, Lima, La Paz and Bermuda.
