Gemology

• Futures to Physical Exchange (EFP) allows one party to exchange a futures contract for the actual underlying asset.

• The S&P GSCI is a benchmark commodity index that tracks the performance of the global commodity market.

• The gold standard is a monetary system backed by the value of physical gold.

• Gross Processing Margin (GPM) is the difference between the cost of a commodity and the revenue generated after the commodity has been sold as a finished product.

• In the financial arena, the term hardening is commonly used to refer to a period of rising prices and decreasing volatility, especially in commodity trading.

Accumulation is the purchase of a large quantity of a commodity by a speculator with the intention of capitalizing on future price increases.#

• A horizontal spread is a simultaneous long and short position in derivatives for the same underlying asset and strike price, but with different expiration dates.

• Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is an American company that owns and operates financial and commodity markets and exchanges.

• A job lot is a futures contract, the par value of which is less than a standard lot.

• The resource curse refers to countries that lag behind economically despite benefiting from valuable natural resources.

• Tick size - the minimum change in the price increment of a trading instrument. – Tick sizes used to be in fractions (e.g. 1/16th of $1), but today they are mostly decimal based and expressed in cents.

• Institutional investors wishing to invest in timber and forest land often turn to Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMO).

USDA stands for United States Department of Agriculture and is a federal agency founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1862.#

• Warehouse financing is a way for businesses to borrow money against their inventory.

• The Witching Hour is the last hour of trading before options or other derivatives contracts expire.

• The 1979 energy crisis was one of two oil price shocks in the 1970s - the other was in 1973.

• Category 3P oil reserves represent the total amount of estimated reserves, including all proved and unproved reserves to which the company has access.

• Agribusiness is a combination of the words “agriculture” and “business” and refers to any business related to agriculture and commercial activities related to agriculture.

• An American option is a type of option contract that allows holders to exercise their rights at any time up to and including the expiration date.

• An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miner is a computerized device or hardware that uses an ASIC solely to mine bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.

• The League of Arab States is a regional multinational organization of the Arabic-speaking countries of the African and Asian continents.

A cession is a transfer of rights or property from one person to another.#

• In the money (ATM) are calls and puts where the exercise price is equal to or very close to the current market price of the underlying security.

• An atomic swap is a cryptocurrency exchange between two parties who want to exchange tokens from different blockchains.

• Backwardation is when the current price of the underlying asset is higher than the prices traded in the futures market.