Commodities
Oil, gold, natural gas, and the raw-material markets that move with global supply, demand, and the dollar.
Commodities are raw or primary economic goods — energy products like crude oil and natural gas, metals like gold and copper, and agricultural products — that trade in standardized units on global exchanges, largely interchangeable regardless of producer. Commodity prices are driven primarily by global supply and demand balances, geopolitical events affecting production regions, and currency moves, since most commodities are priced in U.S. dollars, so a weaker dollar tends to support commodity prices and vice versa. Because commodity price swings often show up in headline inflation data before they filter through to other parts of the economy, commodities coverage is closely tied to the broader inflation and monetary-policy conversation.
