A rigorous but practical introduction to the economic, financial, and political principles underlying commodity markets. Commodities have become one of the fastest growing asset classes of the last decade and the object of increasing attention from investors, scholars, and policy makers. Yet existing treatments of the topic are either too theoretical, ignoring practical realities, or largely narrative and nonrigorous. This book bridges the gap, striking a balance between theory and practice. It offers a solid foundation in the economic, financial, and political principles underlying commodities markets. The book, which grows out of courses taught by the author at Columbia and Johns Hopkins, can be used by graduate students in economics, finance, and public policy, or as a conceptual reference for practitioners. After an introduction to basic concepts and a review of the various types of commodities—energy, metals, agricultural products—the book delves into the economic and financial dynamics of commodity markets, with a particular focus on energy. The text covers fundamental demand and supply for resources, the mechanics behind commodity financial markets, and how they motivate investment decisions around both physical and financial portfolio exposure to commodities, and the evolving political and regulatory landscape for commodity markets. Additional special topics include geopolitics, financial regulation, and electricity markets. The book is divided into thematic modules that progress in complexity. Text boxes offer additional, related material, and numerous charts and graphs provide further insight into important concepts.

Commodities have become an important component of many investors' portfolios and the focus of much political controversy over the past decade. This book utilizes structural models to provide a better understanding of how commodities' prices behave and what drives them. It exploits differences across commodities and examines a variety of predictions of the models to identify where they work and where they fail. The findings of the analysis are useful to scholars, traders and policy makers who want to better understand often puzzling - and extreme - movements in the prices of commodities from aluminium to oil to soybeans to zinc.

In What Money Can't Buy, renowned political philosopher Michael J. Sandel rethinks the role that markets and money should play in our society. Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we put a price on human life to decide how much pollution to allow? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In his New York Times bestseller What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? Over recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. In Justice, an international bestseller, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can't Buy, he provokes a debate that's been missing in our market-driven age: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?

Praise for Commodity Fundamentals "Commodity Fundamentals is THE book for investors looking to enter the commodity markets. This informative guide is a welcome addition on the subject and is a must-read for commodity investors." -Jim Atkinson, President, Guinness Atkinson Funds "Ronald Spurga's Commodity Fundamentals is an illuminating and very useful guide for the subject. A welcome addition to any business library." -Robert F. Himmelberg, PhD, Dean, Fordham's Graduate School of Business Administration "A straightforward introduction crafted for the individual on the mechanics of commodity trading. The author efficiently negotiates the often confusing yet very topical commodity trading world for the individual." -Terence A. Mullervy, Finance Director, Glencore UK Ltd. Commodity Fundamentals provides you with the in-depth insights needed to make commodities trading a profitable, integral component of your overall trading activities. Written by Ronald Spurga, a Vice President of ABN AMRO Bank and longtime veteran of the investment banking wars, this straightforward guide arms you with the information you need to succeed in the highly profitable commodity marketplace-whether you are a trading veteran, a relative newcomer, or anywhere in between.

Principles of Financial Engineering, Third Edition, is a highly acclaimed text on the fast-paced and complex subject of financial engineering. This updated edition describes the "engineering" elements of financial engineering instead of the mathematics underlying it. It shows how to use financial tools to accomplish a goal rather than describing the tools themselves. It lays emphasis on the engineering aspects of derivatives (how to create them) rather than their pricing (how they act) in relation to other instruments, the financial markets, and financial market practices. This volume explains ways to create financial tools and how the tools work together to achieve specific goals. Applications are illustrated using real-world examples. It presents three new chapters on financial engineering in topics ranging from commodity markets to financial engineering applications in hedge fund strategies, correlation swaps, structural models of default, capital structure arbitrage, contingent convertibles, and how to incorporate counterparty risk into derivatives pricing. Poised midway between intuition, actual events, and financial mathematics, this book can be used to solve problems in risk management, taxation, regulation, and above all, pricing. A solutions manual enhances the text by presenting additional cases and solutions to exercises. This latest edition of Principles of Financial Engineering is ideal for financial engineers, quantitative analysts in banks and investment houses, and other financial industry professionals. It is also highly recommended to graduate students in financial engineering and financial mathematics programs. - The Third Edition presents three new chapters on financial engineering in commodity markets, financial engineering applications in hedge fund strategies, correlation swaps, structural models of default, capital structure arbitrage, contingent convertibles and how to incorporate counterparty risk into derivatives pricing, among other topics - Additions, clarifications, and illustrations throughout the volume show these instruments at work instead of explaining how they should act - The solutions manual enhances the text by presenting additional cases and solutions to exercises

Describes both financial and physical hedging strategies and programs applicable to almost any industry. Shows how to use hedging strategies to capitalize on market volatility, while minimizing the effects of unfavorable market swings. Addresses theories of hedging and cross-hedging, cash-and-carry or ``repo'' programs, the ``perfect hedge,'' and the hedging paradox and also offers comparative approaches supported by examples.