The History of Commodity Markets

Commodity markets in their earliest form have originated from the Sumerians. Records were imprinted and engraved into clay tablets containing details about transactions like the staples of that era; cattle, goats, and sheep. Commodity markets are not limited to livestock. The list starts with producers, gold, silver, and other precious metals, including land, labor, and capital. Gold itself quickly became famous for its superb qualities, rarity, and associated cultural values.

The rise of commerce and establishment of global nodes simultaneously increased supply and demands for all kinds of products, encouraging the greatest of the historical merchant minds to establish economic systems that would be used for centuries to come.

The individual items of the commodity markets differ from worldly regions. With the increasing contact, the eventual rise of globalization paved the way to a more standardized method of this transaction, the commodity market. The inception of the first and official commodity market was only born in the 1800s in the United States, Chicago. The Chicago Board of Trade started from stapling wheat, corn, and cattle into its exchange but expanded to add rice, eggs, and other modern staple food after international market access was extended.