Commodity Prices Today
Live prices for energy, metals, grains, softs, livestock & more, updated every 30 seconds.
Live Commodity Prices Across All Sectors
This page tracks real-time prices for 30+ globally traded commodities spanning every major sector. Energy commodities include crude oil (both WTI and Brent benchmarks), natural gas, RBOB gasoline, heating oil, ethanol, and uranium — these are the fuels that power the global economy, with crude oil alone accounting for roughly 3% of world GDP in annual trade value.
Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium serve dual roles as stores of value and industrial materials. Gold remains the world's premier inflation hedge and central bank reserve asset, while silver's industrial demand from solar panels and electronics continues to grow. Platinum and palladium are critical for automotive catalytic converters and hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Base metals such as copper, aluminum, nickel, zinc, lead, and tin are essential for construction, electronics, battery manufacturing, and the green energy transition. Copper in particular is often called "Dr. Copper" for its ability to signal economic health, as it is used in virtually every sector from wiring to electric vehicles.
Agricultural & Soft Commodities
Grains like wheat, corn, soybeans, oats, and rice are staple food crops feeding billions of people and providing critical livestock feed. The United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Ukraine are among the largest exporters, and disruptions to any of these supply chains — whether from drought, conflict, or trade policy — can send prices surging globally. The USDA's monthly WASDE report is the single most influential data release for grain markets.
Softs such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, and orange juice are tropical agricultural products with highly concentrated production regions. Brazil dominates coffee and sugar production, while West Africa (Ivory Coast and Ghana) accounts for over 60% of global cocoa supply. These commodities are particularly sensitive to weather events like El Nino and La Nina cycles, frost in Brazilian growing regions, and disease outbreaks.
Livestock — live cattle, feeder cattle, lean hogs, milk, and cheese — track the US meat and dairy industries. Cattle prices are influenced by feed costs (corn and soybeans), herd sizes reported in the USDA Cattle on Feed report, and seasonal demand patterns such as increased beef consumption during summer grilling season.
How Commodity Prices Are Determined
Commodity prices are set on global futures exchanges including COMEX/CME (metals, energy, livestock), ICE (coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton), and CBOT (grains). These exchanges provide standardized contracts with specified delivery dates, quantities, and quality grades, enabling price discovery through open auction and electronic trading. The resulting prices serve as global benchmarks referenced by producers, consumers, and governments worldwide.
Prices reflect supply and demand dynamics, weather conditions, geopolitical events, currency movements (especially the US dollar), OPEC production decisions, and macroeconomic indicators like GDP growth and manufacturing PMI data. Speculative activity from hedge funds and commodity trading advisors (CTAs) adds liquidity but can also amplify price swings. Each commodity page on MetalCharts includes interactive charts with timeframes from 1 minute to weekly, giving traders and analysts the tools to track these price movements in real time.
Commodity Markets & The Global Economy
Commodity markets operate in long-term cycles known as supercycles — extended periods of rising prices driven by structural demand shifts. The most recent supercycle was fueled by China's rapid industrialization from 2000 to 2014, which consumed enormous quantities of steel, copper, iron ore, and energy. Many analysts believe a new supercycle may be underway, driven by the global green energy transition requiring massive amounts of copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt for electric vehicles, battery storage, and renewable energy infrastructure.
China remains the world's largest consumer of most industrial commodities, and its economic data — particularly manufacturing PMI, infrastructure spending, and property sector activity — moves prices across the entire commodity complex. India's growing economy is emerging as another major demand driver, particularly for gold, crude oil, and base metals.
OPEC and its allies (OPEC+) exert significant influence over crude oil markets through coordinated production cuts and increases. Their decisions can shift oil prices by 5-10% in a single session, with ripple effects across energy-dependent commodities like natural gas, petrochemicals, and fertilizers that underpin agricultural production costs.
Commodity Price Drivers: What Moves Markets
Weather events are among the most powerful short-term commodity price drivers. Droughts in the US Midwest or Brazilian cerrado can devastate soybean and corn crops, while hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico disrupt offshore oil and gas production. Frost events in Brazilian coffee-growing regions have historically triggered 30-50% price spikes in arabica coffee futures.
Geopolitical risk — including sanctions, trade wars, and military conflicts — can disrupt supply chains and create risk premiums. Russian sanctions following 2022 disrupted global flows of oil, natural gas, wheat, palladium, and nickel. US-China trade tensions have periodically roiled soybean and rare earth markets.
Inventory reports provide critical supply data that moves markets weekly. The EIA crude oil inventory report (released every Wednesday) is one of the most closely watched data points in energy markets. The USDA publishes crop progress, export inspections, and the monthly WASDE report that sets the tone for grain markets. COMEX warehouse inventory data tracks physical metal supplies backing futures contracts.
Seasonal patterns create recurring price trends: heating oil and natural gas typically strengthen ahead of winter, gasoline prices rise in spring as refineries switch to summer-grade fuel, and agricultural commodities follow planting and harvest cycles. The CFTC's Commitment of Traders (COT) report reveals speculative positioning by hedge funds and commercial hedgers, offering insight into whether a market is overbought or oversold.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the main commodity categories?
- Commodities are broadly divided into six categories: Energy (crude oil, natural gas, gasoline, heating oil), Precious Metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium), Base Metals (copper, aluminum, nickel, zinc, lead, tin), Grains (wheat, corn, soybeans, oats, rice), Softs (coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, orange juice), and Livestock (live cattle, feeder cattle, lean hogs). Each category has unique supply-demand dynamics and trades on specialized exchanges such as COMEX, ICE, and CBOT.
- How are commodity futures prices determined?
- Commodity futures prices are determined by supply and demand on regulated exchanges like COMEX/CME, ICE, and CBOT. Key factors include weather conditions affecting crop yields, geopolitical events and sanctions, OPEC production decisions for oil, US dollar strength (since most commodities are priced in USD), government inventory reports (such as EIA crude oil and USDA crop reports), seasonal demand patterns, and speculative positioning by hedge funds and institutional traders.
- What is the difference between WTI and Brent crude oil?
- WTI (West Texas Intermediate) is the US oil benchmark, priced at Cushing, Oklahoma, while Brent crude is the international benchmark sourced from the North Sea. Brent typically trades at a premium to WTI due to its broader global relevance and easier access to shipping routes. WTI is a lighter, sweeter crude (lower sulfur content, higher API gravity), making it slightly cheaper to refine. The spread between the two benchmarks reflects transportation costs, regional supply-demand imbalances, and geopolitical risk premiums.
- Why do commodity prices affect inflation?
- Commodities are fundamental inputs for nearly every sector of the economy: oil and natural gas drive transportation and heating costs, grains and livestock determine food prices, and base metals like copper and aluminum are essential for manufacturing and construction. When commodity prices rise, those costs pass through the supply chain to consumers, pushing up the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Central banks closely monitor commodity price trends because sustained increases can trigger broader inflationary pressures, influencing monetary policy decisions on interest rates.
- What is contango and backwardation in commodity markets?
- Contango occurs when futures prices are higher than the current spot price, reflecting storage costs, insurance, and financing (the cost of carry). Backwardation is the opposite: spot prices exceed futures prices, typically signaling tight near-term supply or strong immediate demand. These market structures significantly impact commodity ETF returns because funds must regularly roll expiring contracts into new ones. In contango, rolling creates a drag on returns (buying higher-priced contracts), while backwardation can enhance returns (rolling into cheaper contracts).
- How do commodity prices relate to the US dollar?
- Most globally traded commodities are priced in US dollars, creating a well-documented inverse relationship. When the dollar strengthens (as measured by the DXY index), commodities become more expensive for buyers using other currencies, reducing demand and pushing prices lower. Conversely, a weaker dollar makes commodities cheaper internationally, boosting demand and prices. This relationship is particularly strong for gold, oil, and copper. International commodity buyers and producers often use currency hedging strategies to manage this exchange rate risk.