What it is
Maize as traded in South Africa, where yellow maize, used mainly for animal feed, and white maize, the staple food of southern Africa, have separate contracts.
How it is usually quoted
South African rand per tonne.
This is the customary unit of the reference market. Other markets for the same commodity may use another unit or currency, and an exchange can change a contract’s terms: its own rulebook is the authority.
Where the reference contract trades
Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
Named for orientation only. Naming an exchange or a market here does not mean that GIO4X gives access to it.
What commonly moves it
- Summer rainfall in the Free State, Mpumalanga and North West provinces
- Weather patterns such as El Niño, which has brought drought to southern Africa
- The rand and the Chicago maize price, which set the cost of importing and the return on exporting
- Demand from neighbouring countries
These are the things people who follow this market usually watch. They explain how the market works; they do not say what the price will do next.
Where it comes from
South Africa’s maize belt: the Free State, Mpumalanga and North West.
The order of producers changes from year to year, so no quantities or shares are given here.
At GIO4X
Yellow maize is not offered as a GIO4X instrument. This page is general education about a market that exists elsewhere, and nothing on it means that GIO4X quotes, trades or gives access to it.
The commodities GIO4X does list are Brent crude, gold, natural gas, palladium, platinum, silver and WTI crude.
Words worth knowing
A reference page. Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade. It gives no price and no forecast.