There's a group of agricultural commodity products that trade on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), known collectively as the softs, although some of...
There's a group of agricultural commodity products that trade on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE),
known collectively as the softs, although some of the products are hard.
Most of them are food related, though a few are not, but all are grown. Plus, many of them are grown in the developing world where statistics are not as available and accurate as those released by the United States Department of Agriculture.
They are: orange juice, cocoa, coffee, cotton, sugar, and lumber.
All of them are quoted in cents per pound, except cocoa, which is quoted in dollars per metric ton.
Orange juice comes in contracts of 15,000 pounds. One tick -- five one hundredths of a cent -- is worth $7.50.
One cocoa contract is 10 metric tons. One tick is worth $10.
One coffee contract is 37,500 pounds. One tick is 5/100s of a cent, so $18.75.
A cotton contract is 50,000 pounds. One tick is $5.
A sugar contract is 112,000 pounds, and a tick is $11.20.
Lumber comes in contracts of 110,000 board feet, and one tick is $11.
Obviously, although these are all developing world agricultural products and grouped together on one exchange, they have widely different characteristics.
Lumber requires deforestation of jungles and wilderness, or harvesting of tree farms, which requires some years to grow. Some of them seem quite labor intensive, at least in the harvesting stages. I've heard that chopping sugar cane is very hot, tiring work. Castro used to recruit naive young leftists to go to Cuba to help them bring in the sugar cane harvest.
Some are also vulnerable to weather. An overnight freeze in Florida can make the price of orange juice go up drastically. So can freezes in Brazil threatening the coffee crop.
The main sugar grown is #11, and is the worldwide benchmark. There is sugar #14 and a sugar #16, but these are grown in the United States and are extremely illiquid markets. So stick with sugar #11.
Sugar has traditionally had low margins, and low volatility and risk. However, in recent years it's seen more volatile price moves.
Lumber is actually not traded on ICE, but is still considered a soft. it is also an illiquid market, not newbie trader-friendly.
However, with all these products being produced in countries around the world, in South America, Africa and Asia, and somewhat in the United States, gauging supply and demand in U.S. markets could be quite tricky.
