Risk warning CFDs are complex instruments. 74–89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs.
EnglishAzərbaycanTürkçeРусский
Get the daily brief
Menu
ENAZTRRU
Lexicon About and editorial policy Log in Get the daily brief →
Academy · Stage 4

Commodities and indices

Gold, oil, and the major stock indices: what drives them, how they are traded, and what to watch.

Gold

Gold trades as a currency, a hedge and a commodity at once. It tends to rise when real interest rates (yields minus inflation) fall, when the dollar weakens, and during political or financial stress. It is priced in dollars per troy ounce; the ticker is XAU/USD on most platforms.

Drivers: US real yields, the dollar, central bank buying, geopolitics. Watch the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected yield and Fed expectations more than anything else.

Ways to trade: spot CFDs, futures (COMEX), ETFs. Gold’s daily range is usually 1 to 2 percent, larger around Fed events.

Crude oil

Two benchmarks: WTI (US) and Brent (international). Oil moves on supply — OPEC+ decisions, US production, disruptions — and on demand — global growth, China, seasonality. Weekly US inventory data (Wednesday, 14:30 UTC) is the regular scheduled release. Oil is volatile, gaps on weekend news, and its futures have expiry and rollover effects that CFD traders should understand.

Oil and the Canadian dollar and Norwegian krone move together; oil and airline or transport shares move inversely.

Other commodities

Silver (more volatile than gold, part industrial), natural gas (weather-driven, extremely volatile), copper (a growth barometer, tied to China), agricultural commodities (weather and reports from the US Department of Agriculture). Most retail traders should learn gold and oil before the rest.

Stock indices

An index is a weighted basket of shares. Trading it means trading the market, not a company.

S&P 500 — 500 large US companies, weighted by market cap. The global benchmark. Technology is over a quarter of its weight.
Nasdaq 100 — 100 largest non-financial Nasdaq companies. Technology-heavy, higher volatility, most rate-sensitive.
Dow Jones Industrial Average — 30 large US companies, price-weighted, which makes it quirky. Widely quoted, less traded by professionals.
Russell 2000 — US small caps. Most sensitive to domestic growth and credit.
FTSE 100 — 100 largest UK-listed companies, many of them global miners, oil majors and banks. Often moves inversely to the pound because of overseas earnings.
DAX 40 — Germany’s largest companies. Export-heavy; sensitive to China and the euro.
Euro Stoxx 50 — eurozone blue chips.
Nikkei 225 — Japan. Tends to rise when the yen falls.
Hang Seng — Hong Kong; the main window on Chinese growth.

Indices are traded through futures (the professional route), ETFs (the investing route) and CFDs (the retail route, often labelled US500, US100, UK100, DE40). Index CFDs price off the futures and carry financing costs. Trading hours on CFDs are usually near 24 hours, but liquidity concentrates in the underlying cash session.

What moves indices: rate expectations, earnings season, growth data, and the dollar. Watch the VIX, the implied volatility index for the S&P 500, as a gauge of stress.

RISK DISCLAIMER
Praevis publishes education and market commentary. Nothing here is investment advice. Trading forex, stocks and CFDs carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors.