Commodity Pool

You go for a swim at a hotel only to find that the pool is filled with oil. This would be a literal commodity pool. Don’t swim in it, because things went badly for one of the James Bond female leads in Quantum of Solace.

In finance, a commodity pool is a private investment vehicle that allows multiple investors to trade in the futures markets. Run by a commodity pool operator, these structures allow multiple streams of investment to combine to gain leverage in the commodity and futures market and make even more money. These pools are structured much like mutual funds that can trade differently than an individual investor can.

Given that it’s finance, someone in Washington is going to regulate products and investment structures. In this case, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association regulate commodity pools.