Insights
Spread betting allows you to trade on a whole range of financial markets around the world, but how do you know where to start? Let our Insights help you to spot trends, learn more about what makes prices move and gain some valuable, well, insight into the financial markets.
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Cash commodities
The future of energy
Genetic engineering and the future of soft commodities
Cocoa meltdown
Cash commodities
The future of energy
Genetic engineering and the future of soft commodities
Cocoa meltdown
A fresh approach to trading on the price
movements of commodities
CMC Markets has launched a new way to trade commodities by providing an innovative method to access a broad selection of popular commodity markets. This product provides direct economic exposure to commodities without the complexity of futures contracts, expiration dates, roll-overs and the need to manage delivery and settlement of physical goods. CMC Markets' commodities offer the following benefits: One continuous price, no confusing monthly and quarterly futures... Read more
The future of energy
The world is changing, fast. As developing countries grow so does their thirst for energy to fuel their expansion. Crude oil is one of the most popular and cost effective energy sources in the world. However volatile prices, restricted drilling exploration, political standoffs and environmental concerns are encouraging many of the world’s leaders to seek new alternatives. Renewable and sustainable energy - During the last ten years there has been increasing interest in a new energy sector that is renewable and sustainable, Biofuels. Biofuels are fuels produced from biomass such as sugar, corn, soybeans and even algae. One of the most popular biofuels is ethanol... Read more
Genetic engineering and the future of soft
commodities
The UN predicts that demand for food will increase 50% by 2030. This is partly driven by population growth – predicted to could grow from 6.8 billion at present to nine billion by 2050. That is an extra 55 million mouths to feed every year. How will the world cope with the extra demand? The problem is further exacerbated by rising living standards in developing countries, especially in Asia. As meat replaces vegetables in these regions, more animal food, water and land will be needed... Read more
Cocoa meltdown
Cocoa prices grew to a 30 year high in October 2009 driven by worries about a poor harvest and expectations of rising demand from chocolate makers. More recently prices have slumped by 20%, hit hard by the global financial crisis. But that’s not the end of the story for cocoa. The Ivory Coast produces over 46% of the world’s coca, and supply is being threatened as peace accords with rebels collapse. Add to this the growing demand from India and China’s middle classes, and the story starts to get really interesting. Downward pressure - The biggest threat to cocoa prices at the moment is the global economic downturn. Bottom line, chocolate is a luxury and consumers... Read more
View Insights by category
Commodities
Commodities represent many of our vital resources in terms of food and industry. This includes crude oil, copper, as well as wheat, sugar and coffee.
Commodity prices are influenced by a range of factors specific to each commodity class - from supply and demand conditions, weather and political risks - to pure speculation in some of the smaller markets. CMC Markets offers a range of commodities and you can find prices such as the gold price, oil price, or even the price of silver online on our demo account.
Companies
Major companies such as Apple, Barclays or Tesco have long been popular products for investors to trade.
Use our product library to search for any company you are interested in spread betting. If you know the name, simply type it in and search. Or you can browse through our list of companies by filtering by type, region and country.
Currencies
Foreign exchange or FX trading is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another.
Companies that transact business across borders must buy and sell currency in foreign exchange market. Investors and traders can speculate on changes in the relative prices between dozens of currencies, like pound to dollar or euro to pound, around the world. When one currency increases in value, it strengthens against the other, decreasing its value.
The FX market is more liquid than any other financial market, giving clients access to larger volumes, tighter dealing spreads and lower margin rates. FX trading takes place around the world 24 hours a day. With CMC Markets you can take advantage of currency trading and spread bet on currency pairs such as pound to euro and dollar to pound.
Indices
Many investors today prefer to trade indices rather than individual companies as they give a broader view of the economy.
Sectors
Sectors such as financial services or mining allow you to filter to find companies that all have similar characteristics.
You can compare price performance, volatility, latest news and much more within a sector to help identify the strongest (or weakest) performers. With CMC Markets you can filter by sector to find popular companies that you might want to spread bet.