How Commodity Prices Are Quoted: Units, Tickers and Trading Hours

Each commodity is quoted in its own unit: gold in US dollars per troy ounce, crude oil in dollars per barrel, natural gas in dollars per million British thermal units (MMBtu), and grains in US cents per bushel. Futures also carry a ticker with a month code, such as GCZ6 for December 2026 gold, and most energy and metal futures trade nearly 24 hours a day from Sunday evening to Friday evening New York time. Getting the unit and the hours right avoids expensive beginner mistakes.

The units behind the numbers

Commodity	Quote unit	Example quote	Meaning
Gold	US$ per troy ounce	4,000.00	$4,000 for 31.1 grams
Silver	US$ per troy ounce	50.000	$50 per ounce
Copper (COMEX)	US$ per pound	5.0000	$5 per lb (the LME quotes copper in $ per tonne)
WTI and Brent crude	US$ per barrel	80.00	$80 per barrel of about 159 litres
Natural gas (Henry Hub)	US$ per MMBtu	3.000	$3 per million British thermal units
Heating oil, gasoline	US$ per gallon	2.5000	$2.50 per US gallon
Corn, wheat, soybeans	US cents per bushel	500'0	500 cents = $5.00 per bushel
Coffee, sugar, cotton	US cents per pound	18.50 (sugar)	18.5 cents per pound
Cocoa (ICE US)	US$ per metric tonne	6,000	$6,000 per tonne
Live cattle, lean hogs	US cents per pound	215.000 (cattle)	$2.15 per pound

The prices in the table are round examples, not today's prices; see live levels on the DanioX commodity prices page.

Troy ounces are not ordinary ounces

Precious metals use the troy ounce, which is 31.1035 grams. The ordinary (avoirdupois) ounce used for food is about 28.35 grams. A "one-ounce" gold coin contains one troy ounce.

Cents, not dollars, for grains

A beginner's classic mistake is to read a corn price of 500 as $500. It is 500 cents, or $5.00 per bushel. Many platforms show grain prices in eighths of a cent after an apostrophe or dash, because the minimum price step is a quarter of a cent:

• 512'0 = 512.00 cents
• 512'2 = 512.25 cents
• 512'4 = 512.50 cents
• 512'6 = 512.75 cents

Futures tickers and month codes

A futures ticker joins a root symbol, a month code and a year. Common roots:

• GC gold, SI silver, HG copper (COMEX)
• CL WTI crude, NG natural gas, HO heating oil, RB gasoline (NYMEX)
• ZC corn, ZW wheat, ZS soybeans (CBOT)
• LE live cattle, HE lean hogs (CME)

Month codes are the same on every futures exchange:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
F	G	H	J	K	M	N	Q	U	V	X	Z

So GCZ6 is December 2026 gold and ZCN7 is July 2027 corn. Some platforms write the year with two digits (GCZ26). Not every commodity trades every month: gold's most active months are February, April, June, August, October and December, while corn trades March, May, July, September and December.

CFD symbols are simpler (XAUUSD, USOIL, NATGAS) but differ between brokers, so always open the instrument's specification page.

Contract value: price x size

The notional value of a contract is the total value of the commodity it controls:

• Gold: $4,000 x 100 ounces = $400,000
• WTI crude: $80 x 1,000 barrels = $80,000
• Natural gas: $3.00 x 10,000 MMBtu = $30,000
• Corn: $5.00 x 5,000 bushels = $25,000

Trading hours

CME Group runs electronic trading on its Globex platform. Typical hours (always check the exchange's current schedule, especially around holidays):

• Energy and metals (crude, natural gas, gold, silver, copper): Sunday to Friday, 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. New York time the next day, with a 60-minute break from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. each day.
• Grains (CBOT corn, wheat, soybeans): two sessions, 7:00 p.m. to 7:45 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. to 1:20 p.m. Chicago time, Sunday to Friday.
• Livestock (live cattle, lean hogs): 8:30 a.m. to 1:05 p.m. Chicago time, Monday to Friday.

Converting to Pakistan time

Pakistan Standard Time is UTC+5 all year. New York is UTC-4 during US daylight saving time (from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November) and UTC-5 the rest of the year. Chicago is one hour behind New York.

New York time	Pakistan time (US summer)	Pakistan time (US winter)
Sunday 6:00 p.m. (week opens)	Monday 3:00 a.m.	Monday 4:00 a.m.
5:00 p.m. (daily break starts)	2:00 a.m.	3:00 a.m.
Wednesday 10:30 a.m. (EIA oil report)	Wednesday 7:30 p.m.	Wednesday 8:30 p.m.

When is the market busiest?

Liquidity is highest during the US day session, which overlaps with the London afternoon. The Asian session is thinner, so spreads on CFDs can be wider and prices can jump on smaller orders. Gold is also active in London, where the LBMA Gold Price benchmark is set twice a day.

Settlement prices and daily candles

Futures exchanges publish an official settlement price each day, used to calculate margin. Charts may use the settlement or the last traded price, so daily candles can differ slightly between sources. CFD platforms draw daily candles according to the broker's server time zone, which is why a "daily close" on one broker may not match another, or the futures settlement.