Option (finance) in the context of "Exchange-traded derivative contract"

Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and discipline of money, currency, assets and liabilities. As a subject of study, it is a field of Business Administration which involves the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of an organization's resources to achieve its goals. Based on the scope of financial activities in financial systems, the discipline can be divided into personal, corporate, and public finance.

In these financial systems, assets are bought, sold, or traded as financial instruments, such as currencies, loans, bonds, shares, stocks, options, futures, swaps, etc. Assets can also be banked, invested, and insured to maximize value and minimize loss. In practice, risks are always present in any financial action and entities.

An investor is a person or entity that allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in the primary and secondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns stock is a shareholder.

A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products. The primary sector includes agricultural products, energy products, and metals. Soft commodities may be perishable and harvested, while hard commodities are usually mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodities market for centuries for price risk management.

A financial derivative is a financial instrument whose value is derived from a commodity termed an underlier. Derivatives are either exchange-traded or over-the-counter (OTC). An increasing number of derivatives are traded via clearing houses some with central counterparty clearing, which provide clearing and settlement services on a futures exchange, as well as off-exchange in the OTC market.

The secondary market, also called the aftermarket and follow on public offering, is the financial market in which previously issued financial instruments such as stock, bonds, options, and futures are bought and sold. The initial sale of the security by the issuer to a purchaser, who pays proceeds to the issuer, is the primary market. All sales after the initial sale of the security are sales in the secondary market. Whereas the term primary market refers to the market for new issues of securities, and "[a] market is primary if the proceeds of sales go to the issuer of the securities sold," the secondary market in contrast is the market created by the later trading of such securities.

With primary issuances of securities or financial instruments (the primary market), often an underwriter purchases these securities directly from issuers, such as corporations issuing shares in an initial public offering (IPO) or private placement. Then the underwriter re-sells the securities to other buyers, in what is referred to as a secondary market or aftermarket (or a buyer in contrast may buy directly from the federal government, in the case of a government issuing treasuries).

Nasdaq Stock Market (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange, the second-largest by market cap on the list of stock exchanges, and the first fully electronic stock market. The exchange is based in Manhattan, New York City and is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume.

The exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc., which also owns the Nasdaq Nordic stock market network and several U.S.-based stock and options exchanges. The exchange is the primary listing for many technology companies and also trades stock in many foreign firms, with China and Israel being the largest foreign sources.

Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership, interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form of currency (forex); debt (bonds, loans); equity (shares); or derivatives (options, futures, forwards).

International Accounting Standards IAS 32 and 39 define a financial instrument as "any contract that gives rise to a financial asset of one entity and a financial liability or equity instrument of another entity".

In finance, a swap is a derivative contract between two counterparties to exchange, for a certain time, financial instruments, unconventional cashflows, or payments. Most swaps involve the exchange of interest rate cash flows, based on a notional principal amount.

Unlike future, forward or option contracts, swaps do not usually involve the exchange of the principal during or at the end of the contract. In general, one cash flow, or leg, of the swap is generally fixed, while the other is floating and determined by an uncertain variable such as a benchmark interest rate, a foreign exchange rate, an index price, or a commodity price.

Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) leads the world in the production and export of the cocoa beans used in the manufacture of chocolate. As of 2024, the country produced 45% of the world’s cocoa.

West Africa collectively supplies two-thirds of the world's cocoa crop, with Ivory Coast leading production at 1.8 million tonnes as of 2017, and nearby Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Togo producing an additional 1.55 million tonnes. Ivory Coast overtook Ghana as the world's leading producer of cocoa beans in 1978, and is today highly dependent on the crop, which accounts for 40% of national export income. The primary non-African competitor of Ivory Coast is Indonesia, which went from having an almost nonexistent domestic cocoa industry in the 1970s to becoming one of the largest producers in the market by the early 2000s. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Indonesia overtook Ghana and became the second-largest producer worldwide in 2006. The World Cocoa Foundation provides significantly lower figures for Indonesia, but concurs that it is the largest producer of cocoa beans outside of West Africa. Large chocolate producers such as Cadbury, Hershey's, and Nestle buy Ivorian cocoa futures and options through Euronext, whereby world prices are set.