Soft commodity cotton, and orange juice. Soft commodities have been known to adopt a backwardation trend until the late 1990s when futures were actively traded. Speculation and investment requirements later shaped the common contango trend. Soft commodity Soft commodities, or softs, are commodities such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, corn, wheat, soybean, fruit and livestock. The term generally refers to commodities that are grown, rather than mined; the latter (such as oil, copper and gold) are known as hard commodities. Soft commodities play a major part in the futures market. They are used by farmers wishing to lock-in the future prices of their
Commodity broker commodity contracts. They advise commodity pools and offer managed futures accounts. Like an IB, a CTA does not hold customer funds to margin; they are held at a FCM. CTAs exercise discretion over their clients' accounts, meaning that they have power of attorney to trade the clients account on his behalf according to the client's trading objectives. A CTA is generally the commodity equivalent to a financial advisor or mutual fund manager. Commodity Pool Operator (CPO): a firm or individual that operates commodity pools advised by a CTA. A commodity pool is essentially the commodity equivalent to a mutual fund.