Fungibility Fungibility In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable. For example, since one kilogram of pure gold is equivalent to any other kilogram of pure gold, whether in the form of coins, ingots, or in other states, gold is fungible. Other fungible commodities include sweet crude oil, company shares, bonds, other precious metals, and currencies. Fungibility refers only to the equivalence of each unit of a commodity with other units of the same commodity and not to the exchange of one commodity for another, which is barter. The word "fungibility"
Commodity price index can be traded on an exchange in much the same way as stock index futures. Investors can choose to obtain a passive exposure to these commodity price indices through a total return swap or a commodity index fund. The advantages of a passive commodity index exposure include negative correlation with other asset classes such as equities and bonds, as well as protection against inflation. The disadvantages include a negative roll yield due to contango in certain commodities, although this can be reduced by active management techniques, such as reducing the weights of certain constituents (e.g. precious and base metals) in