Glossary & Domain Terms

📦 Materials & Sources

Good: A material or commodity.

Examples:

• Copper: CU
• EUR/USD: EURUSD
• Gold: AU

Source: The exchange, index, or market where the good is traded or contracts for it published.

Examples:

• CME: Comex, the Commodity Exchange, where metals like gold and copper are traded.
• LME: London Metal Exchange, where base metals are traded.
• OTC: Over-the-Counter, where commodities like gold and silver are traded directly between parties.
• CUR: Currencies, where currency pairs like EUR/USD are traded. In Metal Radar these have their own source, because our forex data is a consolidated source, not a specific exchange.

Product: A combination of source and good.

Products combines the source and the good. It's symbol uses the source and the good, separated by a dash. Examples:

• Copper on CME: LME-CU
• Gold on OTC: OTC-AU
• EUR/USD on OTC: OTC-EURUSD

Contracttype: The specific nature of the price or data (e.g., cash price, 3-month forward, etc.).

Examples:

• FCSH: cash, the current price of a commodity.
• F03M: 3M Forward, the price of a commodity for delivery in three months.
• SCSH-03M: 3M Spread, the difference in price between the spot price and the price for delivery in three months.

Origin: The specific origin of the instrument, if applicable.

Origins can be used to specify the market origin of a commodity, where it is established or traded.

Examples:

• S: Prices from an electronic trading platform.
• O: Official prices, such as the LME daily officials
• C: Consolidated prices, consolidating any origins within a source. The C is usually implied and not explicitly stated in the contract.

Contract: A specific contract for a product, defined by the source, the good and the contract type

A contract defines a tradeable instrument, or a unique identifier for a report (e.g. for volumes or stock). Contracts have the following format: <source>-<good>:<contracttype>[@<origin>]

Examples:

• LME-CU:CSH: Copper on the London Metal Exchange at current price.
• CME-AU:F2506@S: The June 2025 futures contract for gold on the CME, from their electronic trading platform.

Fields: Specific properties of a contract, such as bid price, ask price, or trade volume.

Examples:

• Bid: The price at which a buyer is willing to purchase a contract.
• Ask: The price at which a seller is willing to sell a contract.
• TradeDateTime: The date and time when a trade occurred.

Datapoint: A unique pairing of a contract and a field, representing a single value.

Datapoints have the following format: <contract>:<field> Where <contract> is the contract identifier and <field> is the specific property of that contract.

Examples:

• LME-CU:CSH:Bid: The bid price for copper on the London Metal Exchange at current price.
• CME-AU:F2506@S:Ask: The ask price for the June 2025 futures contract for gold on the CME, from their electronic trading platform.

More examples of datapoints can be found in the API documentation.