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Price Reporting Agency
A price reporting agency (PRA) is a privately owned publisher and information provider that reports commodity prices in physical and derivative commodity markets in order to provide an informed assessment of commodity price levels at distinct points in time. PRAs may also provide services such as news, analysis, consulting, data analytics, and conferencing. There are over 100 price reporting agencies, of which the largest are S&P Global Platts, Argus Media, OPIS (part of Dow Jones), ICIS (part of RELX), and FastMarkets. Background Price reporting agencies assess the fair price of commodities and report these values to a wider audience, who then use those assessments for information purposes or as the basis for physical or financial transactions. Most PRAs were founded by individuals who identified a need for information after encountering a lack of transparency in a commodity market with which they were intimately familiar. The first PRAs often started as mailed or faxed newssh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Financial Crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners and financial institutions that led to the 2000s United States housing bubble, exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of Derivative (finance), derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodity Markets
A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products. The primary sector includes agricultural products, energy products, and metals. Soft commodities may be perishable and harvested, while hard commodities are usually 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 commodities market for centuries for price risk management. A financial derivative is a financial instrument whose value is derived from a commodity termed an underlier. Derivatives are either exchange-traded or over-the-counter (OTC). An increasing number of derivatives are traded via clearing houses some with central counterparty clearing, which provide clearing and settlement services on a futures exchange, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
