Commodities

Oil, Precious Metals, Base Metals, Wheat, Corn, Cocoa and even Palm Oil are all part of the commodities complex. Whether grown, mined or pumped, they all respond to the vagaries of supply and demand and, consequently, can be bought and sold on dedicated exchanges.

Precious metals have traditionally been used both as currencies and as a store of wealth. They cannot be inflated by printing more. They cannot be devalued by government decree -- the free market dictates the price. And, unlike paper currency (often called fiat) or investments in stocks and bonds, precious metals are assets which do not depend on anybody's promise to repay.

Light Sweet Crude Oil is traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). "Light Sweet" is the most popular grade of crude oil that is traded. Another grade of oil is Brent Crude which is primarily traded in London. Crude oil is the raw material that is refined to produce gasoline, heating oil, diesel, jet fuel and many other petrochemicals.

Base metals like iron, copper zinc and aluminum are bought and sold on exchanges and rise and fall in line with supply and demand as do so-called "soft commodities" like wheat, corn and palm oil.

Mutual Funds A mutual fund is a type of investment scheme which pools funds from numerous investors with a view to a collective investment.

Equities We only recommends equities that have been thoroughly researched by our analyst teams in "small cap" or "large cap" companies.

Bonds Bonds can be issued by a number of organizations including municipal authorities and large corporates and traded mostly by institutions.

A stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation) that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. Companies listed at the stock market are expected to strive to enhance shareholder value.

Shareholders are granted special privileges depending on the class of stock, including the right to vote (usually one vote per share owned) on matters such as elections to the board of directors, the right to share in distributions of the company's income, the right to purchase new shares issued by the company, and the right to a company's assets during a liquidation of the company.