tender period meaning in commodity futures

The tender period is the window before a deliverable commodity contract expires in which the exchange matches positions for delivery, on a staggered basis across several days in some contracts. Inside that window the participants who matter are the ones holding the goods in an approved warehouse and the ones who need them, so the price is pulled by warehouse stock, delivery logistics and the cost of not delivering. Turnover in that window no longer represents the market’s view of the commodity, which is why it is worth checking before reading the chart.

the domestic price of an imported commodity on an Indian exchange is made up of

The international price of the commodity, the rupee cost of the dollars needed to pay for it, the import duties and levies applicable to bringing it into the country, and local costs such as financing to the delivery date, storage, insurance and the unit conversion from ounces or barrels. All four inputs move independently, so a breakout on the domestic chart can belong to any of them, and the single line cannot tell them apart.

why does the MCX gold chart move at night

Because the internationally linked contracts — bullion, energy and base metals — run a long evening session on top of the daytime one, precisely so the domestic contract can track the international market while that market is awake. Much of the day’s turnover in these contracts sits in those evening hours, so a single daily candle averages two rather different markets. Agricultural contracts, whose reference market is domestic, generally do not run one, and the exact closing time is set by the exchange and has been revised more than once.

polled spot price meaning

A polled spot price is a physical-market price collected from participants at the designated delivery centre under a published methodology, rather than the output of an order book. It is a survey of a physical market taken once or twice a day, not a tick-by-tick traded series. Reading a divergence between it and the futures price as though both were continuously discovered prices misreads what one of the two numbers is.

does a commodity chart have delivery percentage and free float like a stock

No — delivery percentage, free float, shares outstanding and the shareholding pattern are equity statistics with nothing to attach to on a commodity. What a commodity chart carries instead is open interest measured in lots, exchange and warehouse stock figures published by the exchange, and a contract specification setting out deliverable grade or purity, delivery centre, lot size, tick and quotation unit. Open interest counts outstanding bets rather than physical stock, so it can exceed the quantity of the commodity actually in the country.

Reading an MCX commodity chart

It is twenty past ten at night. Every equity screen in the country closed hours ago, and the gold chart in front of you has just printed the largest candle of the day on the heaviest volume of the day. Nothing has happened in India. What happened is that a data release landed in New York, the international price moved, and the Indian contract — which has been open all evening precisely so that it can respond — moved with it. If your method assumes a session that ends in the afternoon and a market that reacts to Indian news, it has been reading half the chart.

Think of it like this

The price on the board at the mandi

A wholesale market has a board with today’s rate on it. The rate is not an opinion about the crop. It is the landed cost of the goods, plus what it costs to store them until they are wanted, plus whatever the state charges at the checkpost. When the checkpost fee changes overnight, the board changes in the morning and not one farmer, buyer or lorry has done anything different.

In the market

An MCX price for a commodity that arrives here by import is that board. It contains the international price of the thing, the rupee cost of buying dollars to pay for it, the cost of carrying it to the delivery date, and the duties and levies on bringing it into the country. A chart of it is a chart of all four at once.

Three inputs, one line

This is the single most useful thing to know about an Indian commodity chart, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion. A domestic contract on a globally traded commodity tracks the international price converted at the exchange rate. Where the commodity is physically imported and delivered here — bullion being the obvious case — the duties and levies on importing it sit inside the domestic price as well. Each of those inputs moves independently. A breakout on the Indian chart can therefore be an international move, a rupee move, a policy change, or any combination, and the chart cannot tell them apart. Read the contract specification to know which of these applies: a contract settled in cash against an international benchmark carries the first two, and one that ends in physical delivery in India carries all three.

Indian price ≈ international price × exchange rate × (1 + import duties and levies) + local costs

International price: The globally quoted price, in dollars, per its own unit — a troy ounce for bullion, a barrel for crude
Exchange rate: Rupees per dollar, which moves for reasons that have nothing to do with the commodity
Duties and levies: Applicable where the commodity is physically imported. Set by policy and changed in Budgets and notifications, not by the market
Local costs: Financing to the delivery date, storage, insurance, and the unit conversion from ounces or barrels to the contract’s unit

Example: A Budget that reduces the import duty on a metal lowers the whole Indian price band overnight. The domestic chart gaps down hard while the international chart does almost nothing, and every domestic support level below the gap was drawn in a different duty regime.

The session is a different shape

The internationally linked commodity contracts — bullion, energy, base metals — run a long evening session on top of the daytime one, so that the domestic contract can track the international market while it is awake. Agricultural contracts, whose reference market is domestic, generally do not, which is the first thing to establish about any commodity chart you open. The exact closing time is set by the exchange within limits the regulator prescribes, and has been revised more than once — including seasonally, to follow the shift in overseas clocks — so it is a calendar to check rather than a number to memorise. What matters for chart reading is the consequence, which does not change.

A daily candle contains two different markets. The Indian hours are thinner and largely reactive; the evening hours carry the international flow and, on these contracts, usually the larger share of the day’s turnover. One candle averages both, and an opening range measured in the morning is measured in the quiet half.
The gap between sessions is not the gap you are used to. An equity gap represents seventeen and a half hours of unprocessed news. A commodity contract that reopens has been shut for a much shorter period, and much of the overnight adjustment happened while it was still trading.
Time-of-day rules imported from equities land in the wrong place. “The first hour” and “the last half hour” describe positions in a session, and this session has a different shape, a different liquidity profile and a different set of participants at each end of it.
Volume by hour is worth building once. The distribution of turnover across an MCX session is stable enough to be a property of the contract, and it tells you which hours your rule is really being tested in.

What a commodity chart does not have

The furniture that does not carry across

What an equity chart comes with

Shares outstanding and a free float, so turnover can be expressed as a fraction of the company
A delivery percentage published every evening
A shareholding pattern, promoter holding and pledge disclosure
Dated results, and a company that can be researched
One instrument with a continuous history

What a commodity chart has instead

Open interest measured in lots, with no fixed supply of contracts — open interest can exceed the physical stock in the country
Warehouse and exchange stock figures, published by the exchange, which is the nearest equivalent to a supply statistic
A contract specification — deliverable grade or purity, delivery centre, lot size, tick, and the quotation unit
Inventory reports, production decisions abroad, monsoon and harvest, and policy on duty and export
A family of dated contracts, of which you are trading one

The end of a contract’s life is not chart-driven

Where a contract is settled by delivery rather than in cash, the exchange runs a tender period — a window before expiry in which positions can be matched for delivery, in some contracts on a staggered basis across several days. In that window the participants who matter are the ones with metal in an approved warehouse and the ones who need it, and the price is being pulled by warehouse stock, delivery logistics and the cost of not delivering. It can behave in ways no chart method describes, on volumes that no longer represent the market’s view of the commodity.

What transfers intact

Market structure. Higher highs and lower lows describe participants, and participants in a commodity behave recognisably. Trend, range and break-and-retest all read normally.
Volatility measurement and sizing. An average-range calculation is indifferent to what is being measured. Given the leverage in these contracts, sizing by volatility rather than by rupees matters more here than almost anywhere.
Support and resistance, with a caveat. Levels are real within the contract you are trading. Across the spliced continuous chart they are the construction from the previous lesson.
Every risk rule you own. Position sizing, risk per trade, drawdown arithmetic and the discipline of a written invalidation are the parts of an equity method most worth carrying into a leveraged, dated instrument.

◆ Your call

A clean breakout on the domestic gold chart

Your MCX gold chart breaks a three-month range on the biggest volume in weeks, late in the evening session. The setup is exactly the one you have traded in equities for two years.

Check yourself

The domestic price of an imported metal falls 5% overnight while the international price is unchanged and the rupee is unchanged. What is the most likely explanation?

Simple bhasha mein

Mandi ke board pe teen cheezein

Mandi ke board pe jo rate likha hai, woh sirf maal ka bhaav nahi — usme videshi bhaav bhi hai, dollar ka rate bhi, aur custom duty bhi. Raat mein duty badli, subah board badal gaya, aur kisi kisaan ya vyapaari ne kuch alag nahi kiya. MCX ka gold chart bhi teen numberon ka jod hai. Breakout dekh kar order maarne se pehle do chart aur khol lo — international bhaav aur rupaya. Ek minute lagta hai, aur bata deta hai ki aap sona trade kar rahe ho ya rupaya.

What to remember

A domestic commodity price contains the international price, the rupee, and — where the thing is physically imported — the duty on bringing it in.
Check the international chart and the currency before acting on a domestic breakout.
The evening session carries much of the volume, so a daily candle averages two different markets.
There is no float, no shareholding and no delivery percentage; open interest counts bets, not stock.
The tender and delivery window is governed by warehouse stock and logistics rather than by chart behaviour.

You reached the endMark it done and keep your streak going.

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Common questions

Short, direct answers to what people ask about this topic.

tender period meaning in commodity futures: The tender period is the window before a deliverable commodity contract expires in which the exchange matches positions for delivery, on a staggered basis across several days in some contracts. Inside that window the participants who matter are the ones holding the goods in an approved warehouse and the ones who need them, so the price is pulled by warehouse stock, delivery logistics and the cost of not delivering. Turnover in that window no longer represents the market’s view of the commodity, which is why it is worth checking before reading the chart.
the domestic price of an imported commodity on an Indian exchange is made up of: The international price of the commodity, the rupee cost of the dollars needed to pay for it, the import duties and levies applicable to bringing it into the country, and local costs such as financing to the delivery date, storage, insurance and the unit conversion from ounces or barrels. All four inputs move independently, so a breakout on the domestic chart can belong to any of them, and the single line cannot tell them apart.
why does the MCX gold chart move at night: Because the internationally linked contracts — bullion, energy and base metals — run a long evening session on top of the daytime one, precisely so the domestic contract can track the international market while that market is awake. Much of the day’s turnover in these contracts sits in those evening hours, so a single daily candle averages two rather different markets. Agricultural contracts, whose reference market is domestic, generally do not run one, and the exact closing time is set by the exchange and has been revised more than once.
polled spot price meaning: A polled spot price is a physical-market price collected from participants at the designated delivery centre under a published methodology, rather than the output of an order book. It is a survey of a physical market taken once or twice a day, not a tick-by-tick traded series. Reading a divergence between it and the futures price as though both were continuously discovered prices misreads what one of the two numbers is.
does a commodity chart have delivery percentage and free float like a stock: No — delivery percentage, free float, shares outstanding and the shareholding pattern are equity statistics with nothing to attach to on a commodity. What a commodity chart carries instead is open interest measured in lots, exchange and warehouse stock figures published by the exchange, and a contract specification setting out deliverable grade or purity, delivery centre, lot size, tick and quotation unit. Open interest counts outstanding bets rather than physical stock, so it can exceed the quantity of the commodity actually in the country.