Bullion is one of the most liquid commodities. The gold market often compared to the FX one given it size, narrow spreads and a multitude of market participants from financial players and jewelry producers to the official sector and miners on the supply side.

The LBMA statistics shows the OTC reported market clears around 20mln ounces daily. The overall market size is about three times larger. However, unlike currencies, bullion is still a deliverable physical commodity with very fluid and exciting demand side dynamics across the globe.

Despite the recent market turbulence, in the wake of the 2008 liquidity crisis, gold remains on of the least volatile commodities with the likes of silver generally perceived twice as volatile. The traditional demand side fundamentals are ever so important to the gold market. But, bullion prices are more resilient to the supply side shocks given large volumes of above ground stockpiles. Platinum and palladium are much more sensitive to the supply side dynamics and developments in the mining industry.

We have been actively involved in the spot gold market trading and advisory for ten years.   Along with other precious metals, the spot gold market is one of our core expertise areas.

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Crude oil is one of the most exciting commodity markets. It is very liquid and fairly volatile. The derivatives market is driven by multitude of factors from global politics and investor appetite to interest rates and pipeline outages. Short term jitters will affect market participants' sentiment, but these tend to eventually catch up with the physical market fundamentals in the long run.

In the longer run, supply and demand dynamics matter a great deal. The fundamental picture is influenced by investments in new exploration projects and perspective plays, global refining consumption and stockpiling. Global oil flows and logistics, energy policies and technological progress also play their vital role. Still, the market tends to experience regular price shocks and overshoot to the upside or the downside.

We have been covering the energy market and generating crude market trading strategies for over a decade. We are happy to offer market guidance to downstream or upstream players as well as institutional investors, corporates with significant energy price exposure, oil traders and anyone involved in the energy sector.

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Base metals

The LME complex comprises of six industrial metals: copper, aluminium, nickel, zinc, lead and tin. These base metals are used in the consumer goods industry, the automotive sector as well infrastructure development and the construction sectors. By far, the largest consumer of industrial metals is China. Hence, China’s economic policies, its infrastructure projects, monthly macro numbers and trade data as well as domestic onshore stockpiles are extremely important to global metals producers and mining corporations. Moreover, the SHFE is becoming an increasingly important platform where local players have a significant sway in the price discovery.

We have been covering base metals markets for over ten years, gaining our first-hand experience of the metals business with one of the LME's ring dealing members and then with one the largest producers in the world.

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