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
United States Commodity Funds United States Commodity Funds United States Commodity Funds LLC (USCF) is a US company based in Oakland, CA, specializing in managing exchange-traded commodity funds, which are often referred to as commodity-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs). USCF was one of the earliest issuers of exchange-traded commodity funds in the United States. It is best known for launching in 2006 the first crude oil based exchange traded commodity fund in the United States, United States Oil Fund, LP (ticker: USO), as well as launching in 2007 the first natural gas exchange traded commodity fund, United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (ticker: UNG). USO