A commodity is a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other goods of the same type. Commodities are often used as inputs in producing other goods or services.  The quality of a given commodity may differ slightly, but it is essentially uniform across producers. When commodities like cacao, wheat, energy, etc. are traded on an exchange, one thing to keep in mind is that commodities tend to be much more volatile than other types of investments, especially funds that track a single commodity or economic sector. So follow global news about commodities to make investment better!