Cocoa Futures- London Stock Exchange
London is truly a great capital city of the world in many ways. For one, the world language in business is English and this is due to the world's shared British history. In fact we all know about The United States and our history tied to Britain. But did you know that Britain is also the capital when it comes to chocolate?
The London Stock Exchange is where the vast majority of cocoa futures are traded. In fact, London is actually considered the predominant capital when it comes to the cocoa futures market.
Cocoa futures are the contracts that guarantee cacao pricing and cacao production. This is how manufacturers that make the actual raw chocolate source and buy their raw cacao materials to use in manufacturing chocolate couverture. The London cacao market is traded in Sterling. Sterling is the British currency which generally has a higher exchange rate then the US Dollar, so it is preferred by brokers and farmers selling their raw cacao. Also the London cocoa futures market is closely tied to the largest growing regions of cacao throughout the world. I suspect this is due to the period between 1815 - 1914 when the British Empire sent sailing ships to all four corners of the globe.
In the United States cocoa futures are traded on The New York Stock Exchange, but it is not as vigorous as a market as London's when it comes to cacao.