Best Commodity Books: 8 Titles for Trading, Investing and the Physical Trade

Most commodity books here fall into three groups, and the first question is which one you need: a futures trading manual if you will trade contracts on margin, an investing guide if you only want exposure to commodity prices, or an account of the physical trade if you want to know how oil, metals and grain change hands. We checked each edition in a book catalog or on the publisher's page on November 1 or November 2, 2026, and did not reread them, so the order is not a ranking.

Which book fits which reader

You want to trade commodity futures

A Trader's First Book on Commodities by Carley Garner was first published by FT Press in 2010; the third edition, from DeCarley Trading in October 2017, runs to 246 pages and is subtitled Everything You Need to Know about Futures and Options Trading Before Placing a Trade; the link here opens the earlier second edition. Once you know the basics, the same author's Higher Probability Commodity Trading, published by DeCarley Trading in 2016 in 280 pages, covers market analysis, strategy development and risk management. For a systematic approach, Alex Krainer's Mastering Uncertainty in Commodities Trading, self-published in paperback in June 2016, also a 267-page Kindle edition, is about trend following across forex, commodities and financial markets.

You want to invest in commodities

Hot Commodities by Jim Rogers came out from Random House in December 2004, with a 272-page paperback in 2007. It makes the investor's case for commodities, as its subtitle promises: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. The Little Book of Commodity Investing by John Stephenson, published by Wiley in 2010, explains the benefits of commodities in a diversified portfolio, according to its Google Books description. For an overview of the basics, Commodities For Dummies by Amine Bouchentouf was first published in 2006 and reached its third edition in 2023.

You want to understand the physical trade

The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources was published by Oxford University Press on March 1, 2021, in 416 pages. Oxford presents it as the first history of the physical commodity trading industry to cover oil, metals and agriculture, built on interviews never published before. You can find it through this Amazon link.

You work on commodity products professionally

The Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and Products by Andrea Roncoroni, Gianluca Fusai and Mark Cummins, published by Wiley in 2015, is a 1,072-page reference on structuring, trading and risk management. Wiley presents it as a practitioner-orientated manual for traders, commodity brokers and other professionals.

Commodities against stocks, measured

Two investing books on this list, Rogers's and Stephenson's, make the case for holding commodities. The chart below shows how two common ways to hold them did against the S&P 500 since 2006: a fund that holds a basket of commodity futures, and a fund that holds gold bullion. All three are ETFs, with dividends counted where they paid any.

Over this period, the basket of futures ended far behind both gold and stocks, and at its low in April 2020 stood about 75% below its 2008 peak. Gold did better than the futures basket, with long flat stretches. A different start or end date gives a different picture: on monthly closes, the futures basket gained about 41% in 2021, against 29% for the S&P 500 ETF, and about 19% in 2022, a year the S&P 500 ETF lost about 18%. The point is not which wins: a futures fund does not follow the spot price exactly, because each time it rolls into the next contract it gains or loses the gap between the two prices, a reason to read a futures manual before buying one.

Where commodities fit

Commodities are one of the main asset classes, next to stocks, bonds and currencies. If you trade other futures too, see our list of futures trading books; for long-term investing beyond commodities, see the best investing books; and for chart reading on any market, our technical analysis books. You can also browse all our trading reviews.