Where can I get interesting resources on Commodities?
Here are some pretty big name news agencies which have a section dedicated to commodities: CNN Bloomberg Reuters I would recommend that go through some forums where commodities topics be discussed so that if you have some issues related any point in commodities investment you will easily get your question sort out.
"I'll take a stab at this question and offer a disclosure: I recently got in RING (5.1), NEM (16.4), ASX:RIO (46.3), and FCX (8.2).  While I won't add to my positions at current prices, I may add other positions, or more to them if they fall further.  This is called catching a falling dagger and it's a high risk move. Cons (let's scare everyone away) Pros The ECB didn't engage in as much QE as the market hoped and look at how it reacted, especially commodities.  Consider that the ECB's actions were ""tighter"" than expected and the Fed plans to raise rates, or claims so.  Commodities should be falling off a cliff on that news. While most American/Western attention is on the latest news or entertainment, China has been seizing commodities around the globe like crazy, and the media have failed to mention that even with its market failing, China is still seizing commodities.  If China was truly panicked about its market, it would stop investing in other countries and commodities and just bail out its own country.  Yet, it's not doing that.  The whole ""China crisis"" is completely oversold in the West; China is saying one thing (""oh no""), but doing another (using its money to snap up cheap commodities). Capitalism works because hard times strengthen good companies.  You know how many bailouts ExxonMobil has received compared to Goldman Sachs?  You know who owns more real wealth?  Oil doesn't get bailed out, banks do, and banks can't innovate to save their lives, while oil innovates.  Hard times strengthen good companies.  This means that this harsh bust in commodities will separate the winners from the losers and history shows the winners do very well in the long run. Related to the above point: how many bailouts from tax payers do you think mining companies will get?  Zero.  At least you're investing in companies that don't steal your money through government confiscation. If you're like me, you can probably find at least 9 people out of 10 who think ""investing in miners is a VERY BAD idea.""  What do they think is a good idea?  ""Duh, Snapchat and Twitter, bruh!""  Then there's the old saying, ""Be greedy when everyone's fearful and fearful when everyone's greedy."" Finally, miners own hard assets.  Benjamin Graham used to point this out with the ""dead company"" strategy like finding a used cigarette with one more smoke.  You're getting assets cheap, while other investors are overpaying for stocks, hoping that the Fed unleashes moar QE!  Think strategy here: seize cheap assets, begin limiting the supply of these assets (if you're the saver and not borrowing), then watch as the price begins to rise for them because of low supply.  Remember, investors are part owners in companies - take more control to limit the supply.  Using Graham's analogy, stock pile those one-puff cigarettes for a day when there's a low supply of cigarettes. Many miners are in trouble now because they've borrowed too much and must sell at a low profit, or in some cases, must lose.  When you own assets debt free, you can cut the supply.  This will also help the Federal Reserve, who's been desperately trying to figure out how to raise inflation.  The new patriotic thing to do is stimulate the economy by sending inflation up, and limiting the supply here is key." Assuming that the financial system broke down, not enough supply of essential commodities or food but there is political and administrative stability and no such chaos that threatens your life by physical attacks.  The best investment would then be some paddy fields, land, some cows, chickens and enough clothing , a safe house to stay and a healthy life style that enables you to work for food and some virtue at heart and management skills to get people work for you on your resources so that they can survive with you (may be you earn some profit -that is up to your moral standards to decide, how much). It all begins to start again; a new Financial System has to be in place….! In order to understand how much you might gain or lose from participating in the futures markets, it is important to first understand the different ways in which the slope of the futures markets can be described. In many of the futures markets there is a possibility of somebody buying a commodity at the spot price and selling a futures contract on it. In order to do this they need to hold the commodity in storage. Most commodities cost money to hold in storage, so the futures price will tend to be above the spot price for these commodities.  In the case of stock index futures, the holder receives a potential benefit from holding the stocks in an index.   If the futures market is upward sloping compared to the spot price, then it can be called normal. If the futures market is usually downward sloping compared to the spot price then it can be called inverted. If the futures market is high enough above the spot price so that more of the commodity gets stored for the future, then the market can be called in contango. If the futures market is below the point where the commodity can be profitably stored for the future, and the market can be called in backwardation. In many of these cases, there is an implicit cost that the buyer of a future pays in order to hold the contract for certainly time. Your question is how much money you make if the price of gold goes up by a specific amount, or how much money you lose if the price of gold goes down by the same specific amount.  The problem is, you do not say whether it is the spot price or the futures price which goes up or down.  In most cases it is assumed that the change in the futures price will be similar to the change in the spot price of gold.  If the spot price of gold goes up by a small amount, then the futures price of gold will go up by a small amount as well.  If the futures price of gold goes up by a small amount, this will also drive the spot price of gold up.  Even for these small price changes, the expected futures price change in expected spot price change will not be exactly the same.  For larger price changes, there will be more of a difference between the expected spot price change in expected future price change.   If the price eventually goes up, then the cost of holding the contract will be subtracted from any future gains.  If the price eventually goes down, then this holding cost should be added to the losses.  If you bought the contract when it was above the spot price, the price will slowly drift toward the spot price, causing you this holding cost.  If the price of gold does not change any from the current spot price, then all you are left with is this holding cost. "Index funds can be a very good way to get into the stock market. It's a lot easier, and cheaper, to buy a few shares of an index fund than it is to buy a few shares in hundreds of different companies. An index fund will also generally charge lower fees than an ""actively managed"" mutual fund, where the manager tries to pick which stocks to invest for you. While the actively managed fund might give you better returns (by investing in good companies instead of every company in the index) that doesn't always work out, and the fees can eat away at that advantage. (Stocks, on average, are expected to yield an annual return of 4%, after inflation. Consider that when you see an expense ratio of 1%. Index funds should charge you more like 0.1%-0.3% or so, possibly more if it's an exotic index.) The question is what sort of index you're going to invest in. The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is a major index, and if you see someone talking about the performance of a mutual fund or investment strategy, there's a good chance they'll compare it to the return of the S&P 500. Moreover, there are a variety of index funds and exchange-traded funds that offer very good expense ratios (e.g. Vanguard's ETF charges ~0.06%, very cheap!). You can also find some funds which try to get you exposure to the entire world stock market, e.g. Vanguard Total World Stock ETF, NYSE:VT). An index fund is probably the ideal way to start a portfolio - easy, and you get a lot of diversification. Later, when you have more money available, you can consider adding individual stocks or investing in specific sectors or regions. (Someone else suggested Brazil/Russia/Indo-China, or BRICs - having some money invested in that region isn't necessarily a bad idea, but putting all or most of your money in that region would be. If BRICs are more of your portfolio then they are of the world economy, your portfolio isn't balanced. Also, while these countries are experiencing a lot of economic growth, that doesn't always mean that the companies that you own stock in are the ones which will benefit; small businesses and new ventures may make up a significant part of that growth.) Bond funds are useful when you want to diversify your portfolio so that it's not all stocks. There's a bunch of portfolio theory built around asset allocation strategies. The idea is that you should try to maintain a target mix of assets, whatever the market's doing. The basic simplified guideline about investing for retirement says that your portfolio should have (your age)% in bonds (e.g. a 30-year-old should have 30% in bonds, a 50-year-old 50%.) This helps maintain a balance between the volatility of your portfolio (the stock market's ups and downs) and the rate of return: you want to earn money when you can, but when it's almost time to spend it, you don't want a sudden stock market crash to wipe it all out. Bonds help preserve that value (but don't have as nice of a return). The other idea behind asset allocation is that if the market changes - e.g. your stocks go up a lot while your bonds stagnate - you rebalance and buy more bonds. If the stock market subsequently crashes, you move some of your bond money back into stocks. This basically means that you buy low and sell high, just by maintaining your asset allocation. This is generally more reliable than trying to ""time the market"" and move into an asset class before it goes up (and move out before it goes down). Market-timing is just speculation. You get better returns if you guess right, but you get worse returns if you guess wrong. Commodity funds are useful as another way to diversify your portfolio, and can serve as a little bit of protection in case of crisis or inflation. You can buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium ETFs on the stock exchanges. Having a small amount of money in these funds isn't a bad idea, but commodities can be subject to violent price swings! Moreover, a bar of gold doesn't really earn any money (and owning a share of a precious-metals ETF will incur administrative, storage, and insurance costs to boot). A well-run business does earn money. Assuming you're saving for the long haul (retirement or something several decades off) my suggestion for you would be to start by investing most of your money* in index funds to match the total world stock market (with something like the aforementioned NYSE:VT, for instance), a small portion in bonds, and a smaller portion in commodity funds. (For all the negative stuff I've said about market-timing, it's pretty clear that the bond market is very expensive right now, and so are the commodities!) Then, as you do additional research and determine what sort investments are right for you, add new investment money in the places that you think are appropriate - stock funds, bond funds, commodity funds, individual stocks, sector-specific funds, actively managed mutual funds, et cetera - and try to maintain a reasonable asset allocation. Have fun. *(Most of your investment money. You should have a separate fund for emergencies, and don't invest money in stocks if you know you're going need it within the next few years)." "For learning about finances my main two financial resources are this site, and the Motley Fool. My secondary sources are keeping up with columns by my favourite economic journalists - in the press in the US, Australia, England, and India. Regarding your comment about feeling green on the basics despite the reading - you're not alone. I've been interested in financials for better than 10 years, but there are a lot of questions on this site where I say to myself, ""I've no idea of what the answer could be, what are our resident experts saying?"" Having said that, there are some topics where I feel as though I can weigh in - and they tend to be where I have a little book knowledge and a lot of personal experience." I'm a commodity trader. The only degree I had when I started trading was a BS in Bioinformatics from Loyola University Chicago.  If you take initiative and can sweet talk your way into an interview, that's all you need. I would recommend getting a used set of Chartered Financial Analyst books.  The series is a great broad introduction to the most important aspects of investing and the markets.  Combining both day-to-day knowledge and fundamental theory. CFA materials include in depth discussions of: After you have a strong base then stop by quant.stackexchange and ask about more specialized books or anything else that interests you.  Have fun with your journey. I agree that a random page on the internet is not always a good source, but at the same time I will use Google or Yahoo Finance to look up US/EU equities, even though those sites are not authoritative and offer zero guarantees as to the accuracy of their data. In the same vein you could try a website devoted to warrants in your market.  For example, I Googled toronto stock exchange warrants and the very first link took me to a site with all the information you mentioned.  The authoritative source for the information would be the listing exchange, but I've spent five minutes on the TSX website and couldn't find even a fraction of the information about that warrant that I found on the non-authoritative site.