Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Historical Commodity Prices

This afternoon Prof. Jiao helped me tackle a question similar to the eucayptus and mineral examples.

The student was looking for historical spot commodity prices for oil, silver and gold going back many years.

Before I had a chance to get the student onto the designated terminal to use Thompson DataStream (which has historical commodity prices), Prof. Jiao stepped up and showed us a user-friendly print copy of the CRB (Commodity Research Bureau) Commodity Yearbook which allows you to look up commodities by name (like gold) and find historical data trends going back many years without having to construct a query. The student was pleased.

Later I came across a pathfinder via the Portland State College Library which links to a nice web-based Guide to Understanding the Commodities Market. The guide also has a Glossary.

I hope this information is of some help. It was for me. Thank you to Prof. Jiao!

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