Outcry Floor Trading

(Reuters) - CBOT grain traders got their first taste on Thursday of trading without a two-hour cushion between the release of price-sensitive U.S. government data and markets being open, as the new 21-hour trading cycle exposed some frayed nerves. The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its weekly export sales report at 7:30 a.m. Central (1230 GMT) when the Chicago Board of Trade grain markets were open for business. The CBOT began a 21-hour trading cycle on Monday. Rival Intercontinental Exchange (ICE.N) was also open, but its volume was far smaller than that of the world's largest grain exchange, owned by the CME Group (CME.O). The data moved the corn futures market, with benchmark July slipping slightly lower in a knee-jerk reaction before rebounding after traders dug deeper into ...

Oil prices rose on Monday after Greece approved austerity measures needed to acquire more aid and avoid default, sparking another round of investor optimism, and as tensions between Israel and Iran reinforced concerns about supply disruptions. U.S. crude futures trading resumed post-settlement after electronic trading of oil futures was halted for more than an hour on the New York Mercantile Exchange because of an unspecified technical issue. The glitch in electronic trading occurred in the last half hour of the open outcry floor session and did not stop floor trading. Brent March crude rose 62 cents to settle at $117.93 barrel, reaching $118.61 to match Friday's intraday peak. The Brent March contract expires on Tuesday. U.S. March crude rose $2.24 to settle at $100.91 a barrel, ...

(Reuters) - Brent oil rose slightly on Tuesday and U.S. crude jumped more than 1.5 percent, bolstered by an unplanned outage at a Canadian oil sands plant and optimism about an agreement on Greece's debt problems. An Alberta plant that processes Canadian oil sands was expected to be shut for two or three weeks, adding lift for U.S. crude and helping narrow its deficit to Brent. Brent's premium to U.S. crude oil widened in early trade to more than $20 per barrel, its highest since October, before a brief but sharp reversal by Brent and a rally by the U.S. contract narrowed the spread back below $18 and left it at $17.82 based on settlements. "The spread got above $20 and it looks like some big players came in and pulled it back, then the dollar fell on expectations a Greece debt deal is ...

NEW YORK (Reuters)- For the small club of companies who trade the food, fuels and metals that keep the world running, the last decade has been sensational. Driven by the rise of Brazil, China, India and other fast-growing economies, the global commodities boom has turbocharged profits at the world's biggest trading houses. They form an exclusive group, whose loosely regulated members are often based in such tax havens as Switzerland. Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world's freely traded commodities. The top five piled up $629 billion in revenues last year, just below the global top five financial companies and more than the combined sales of leading players in tech or telecoms. Many amass speculative positions worth ...