Spot market

The spot market or cash market is a commodities or securities market in which goods are sold for cash and delivered immediately. Contracts bought and sold on these markets are immediately effective. Spot markets can operate wherever the infrastructure exists to conduct the transaction. The spot market for most securities exists primarily on the Internet.

Examples

Spot Forex

The spot foreign exchange market has a 2 day delivery date, originally due to the time it would take to move cash from one bank to another.

Energy Spot

The spot energy market allows producers of surplus energy to instantly locate available buyers for this energy, negotiate prices within milliseconds and deliver actual energy to the customer just a few minutes later. Spot markets can be either privately operated or controlled by industry organizations or government agencies. They frequently attract speculators, since spot market prices are known to the public almost as soon as deals are transacted. Examples of energy spot markets for natural gas in Europe are the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands and the National Balancing Point (NBP) in the United Kingdom.