Commodities

As an investor I have to admit most of my time and energy is spent delving into the facts and figures behind companies comprising the speculative end of the UK share market. Though when economic times turn a little tough, I tend to turn my attention and place a portion of my portfolio into commodities (predominantly gold and silver) via some financial spread bets or contracts for difference (CFDs).

Commodity trading adds another string to your investment bow and can provide a refreshing change of focus to more macro-economic events. Many commodities benefit from the very economic conditions that can turn a well-performing share portfolio on its head. A small proportion of your portfolio diversified into commodities can prove to be a great hedge in times of economic uncertainty.

And when all is said and done, commodity trading – when planned and executed well – can be exceptionally rewarding.

The Investor Trader portfolio as it stands has the following commodity trades in play

For any wannabe commodity investors out there wanting to learn more about the world of financial spread betting, check out these great, in-depth online financial spread-betting seminars from IG Index which will have you placing your first commodity trade in no time.

Commodity Trading Posts on Investor Trader

• Silver In the world of investing all that glitters...is sometimes silver. Without going all technical on yo ass (mental note: lose the gansta-talk when chatting investment) here's a few compelling reasons to take a look at gold's sexier single cousin. Silv...
• Berkeley Mineral Resources and Gold With our share portfolio in free-fall there's not much good news coming out of Investor Trader for the moment. That is unless you consider Investor Trader's new colour scheme news-worthy? I had hope for Berkeley Mineral Resources (BMR.L) when I fleetin...
• A Great Week For Gold Fuelled by the possibility that the US may soon default on its debt - to avoid default, US politicians have to agree to raise the country's debt limit by 2nd August 2011 - coupled with the imminent announcement of the European Banking Authority's stress t...
• Buys and Sells and Gold Lots going on, but I'm heading off - on holidays that is. A midsummer week of island-hopping in Scandinavia. Now if that sun would just re-appear. I'm usually not one to scare too easily but today - with a week away from the keyboard coming up and the ...
• A Golden Update It's been a bit of a rocky road for our gold play over the past few weeks since we got on board in late April at just a notch above $1,500 an ounce. The one month chart (below - courtesy of SharePrice.co.uk) shows the spot price for gold rocketed to over ...