Hedging in commodities and how it works. http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/dealing-handbook.php PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE THIS VIDEO SO WE CAN DO MORE! How does hedging actually work? Commodity markets were originally invented to permit producers of commodities to hedge their exposure to the fluctuating price of a commodity. So if you have a consumer who was consuming a product no one really cares about him. It is the producer that needs to be looked after and protected. Granted the end consumer might have to pay a little bit more for his, say, cornflakes but that's not the end of the world. On the other hand if producers don't have any incentive to keep producing a commodity or if they're very vulnerable to price fluctuations in the commodity they might stop producing that commodity altogether. So futures exchange came about to allow producers to hedge their produce.
Let's suppose a soybeans farmer expects to produce 500,000 bushels and her breakeven price is $10 per bushel. Now 1 Futures contract is equivalent to 5000 bushels The current price of soybeans for the expiry that she wants is $13 per bushel. If she wanted to lock that price of $13 per bushel she would sell (i.e. short) 100 futures contracts at $13.
Some farmers are little bit more risk-seeking - they will try to time the market so they will become speculators in their own right.
