Liquidity is very important to active commodity traders. The higher the volume of a futures contract on a commodity, the easier it is to get in an out of a market at the truest price - less slippage. Commodities with high volume are the often the choice for day traders and many large traders. Low volume commodity markets are often prone to wild price swings.
The financial futures are sometimes lumped in with commodities, but they are actually just futures markets. The E-mini S&P 500 and Eurodollars markets are among the highest volume futures markets, but we will just concentrate on commodities for these rankings.
Below are the rankings of the most liquid commodities markets that trade in the U.S. - ranked from high to lower volume. The commodities not listed are considered to have much lower average trading volume.
- Crude Oil
- Natural Gas
- Heating Oil
- Sugar - World #11
- RBOB Gasoline
- Gold
- Corn
- Wheat
- Soybeans
- Copper
- Soybean Oil
- Silver
- Cotton
- Cocoa
