Commodity Contracts Intermediation (U.S., NAICS 52316)

Single-child level. In the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), the five-digit industry 52316 contains exactly one six-digit national industry, 523160, of the same name. The two are effectively identical: every firm counted here is a commodity-contracts intermediary. This page is a short rollup — it gives this level's own ground-truth federal figures and points you to the full leaf primer for 523160, which carries the detailed treatment of players, economics, regulation and the investable universe. [1]

1. Overview

Commodity contracts intermediation is the business of standing between the buyers and sellers of derivatives — financial contracts whose value derives from an underlying commodity or reference (oil, corn, gold, foreign currency, interest rates, stock indexes, even cryptocurrencies). The firms here take customer orders, hold the cash customers post as collateral, and route trades to the exchanges and clearinghouses where they settle. They are the plumbing that lets a farmer lock in a wheat price, a bakery hedge its flour cost, an airline cap its jet-fuel bill and a hedge fund place a leveraged bet — all through the same standardized market. [1][1]

The one point to keep in mind before you invest: owning an intermediary is not the same as owning the commodity. Intermediary earnings depend on trading activity, volatility, spreads, client balances, capital and risk controls — not on whether oil or gold went up. This is a fee-and-float business. For the full mechanics — the player types, how the money is made, and where value concentrates — see the child primer for 523160. [3][3]

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is a nested hierarchy: sector (2-digit) → subsector (3-digit) → industry group (4-digit) → NAICS industry (5-digit) → national industry (6-digit). Most 5-digit industries fan out into several 6-digit children. 52316 does not — it has a single child:

Because the child is the whole level, every statistic, definition and dynamic at 52316 is the same as at 523160. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the scope as establishments acting as principals or agents in buying or selling spot or futures commodity contracts or options — precious metals, foreign currency, oil, agricultural products and the like — either on a spread basis (as a dealer trading its own account) or on a commission basis (as a broker acting for customers). [1]

Adjacent activities live in other codes, so they are not counted here: securities brokerage and investment banking (NAICS 523150); the exchanges themselves, such as CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) (NAICS 523210); clearinghouses (NAICS 523999); and merchants who take physical delivery of a commodity to resell it (Wholesale or Retail Trade). This industry trades the contract, not the physical barrel. [1]

3. Size — this level's rollup figures

Because 52316 equals 523160, the rollup figures are simply the industry's figures. The ground-truth federal numbers supplied for this level:

The HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) is a standard concentration measure — the sum of each firm's squared market share, where anything under 1,500 is generally read as unconcentrated. The stats file supplied for this level contains only the Economic Census concentration and firm/receipts figures above; it carries no establishment, employment or payroll counts. Those additional measures (1,644 establishments, 22,288 employees and $7.44 billion of annual payroll from County Business Patterns) appear in the 523160 child primer and, since the child is the whole level, describe 52316 as well. [3]

Undercount caveat (important). These figures understate commodity-contract intermediation as an economic function. The largest futures commission merchants (FCMs) — the licensed firms that hold customer money — are units inside diversified banks and are classified under commercial banking (Sector 522) or securities (523150), not here. So the official ~$18 billion of receipts captures mainly the dedicated futures brokers, non-bank FCMs and small introducing brokers, while the giants sit in other codes. For scale, customer collateral held across all U.S. FCMs was about $397 billion in futures accounts plus roughly $170 billion in cleared-swaps accounts in mid-2025 — dwarfing this industry's official revenue. The federal HHI of 301 (very unconcentrated) reflects only the fragmented independents; the true FCM market is far more concentrated once the bank giants are counted. [2][3]

4. Investable universe — where the value sits

With a single child, all of the level's value sits in the same firms. There is no large-cap pure commodity-broker stock. The cleanest listed exposures are two mid-caps — StoneX Group (NASDAQ: SNEX), the largest non-bank U.S. FCM after its 2025 purchase of R.J. O'Brien, and Marex Group (NASDAQ: MRX) — plus Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR), which carries a large futures franchise. The very largest FCMs are embedded inside banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley), so most public exposure comes bundled with a bank. Private investors reach the industry through equity or credit in FCMs, introducing brokers, market makers and commodity houses. The full table of names, tickers and roles is in the 523160 primer, Section 4. [3]

5. How the money works

Owners earn from four levers, unchanged from the child level: (1) commissions per contract traded; (2) the bid-ask spread captured when acting as principal or market maker; (3) net interest income on customer float — FCMs hold large balances of segregated customer margin and keep most of the interest, a stream that became a dominant profit driver once rates rose in 2022–2023; and (4) clearing, financing, platform and market-data fees. Introducing brokers earn only a split of the commission. See 523160, Section 5, for the metrics that matter — futures volume and open interest, revenue per contract, client assets and margin, net interest income, and adjusted net capital. [3][3]

6. Demand drivers

Demand at this level is exactly the child's: commercial hedging by producers, refiners, food companies and airlines; market volatility from weather, wars, sanctions and supply shocks, which lifts trading volume; financial participation by hedge funds, asset managers and commodity trading advisors (CTAs); the energy transition, which spawns new markets; electronic access and new products, including micro-contracts, crypto-linked futures and CFTC-regulated event (prediction) contracts; and interest rates, which move float income directly. [1]

7. Regulation

The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) is the primary federal regulator under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), and the NFA (National Futures Association) is the industry's self-regulatory organization — every FCM and introducing broker must register with the CFTC and belong to the NFA. The cornerstone rule is customer-fund segregation: FCMs must hold customer trading funds apart from firm capital so that, if the firm fails, customer money is shielded from its creditors. Minimum adjusted net capital is $1 million for an FCM. The 2011 collapse of MF Global, where more than $1 billion of customer money went missing, drove post-crisis tightening; Dodd-Frank (2010) brought the swaps market under CFTC oversight. The full regulatory treatment is in 523160, Section 7.

8. Consolidation

The defining story is decades of consolidation: registered FCMs fell from a peak of about 253 in 1995 to roughly 60–70 today, and the subset of "carrying" FCMs that actually hold customer funds shrank even more sharply. The drivers are rising capital requirements, escalating technology and compliance costs, thin commission margins and clearing economics that reward scale. The result is a barbell — a handful of bank-affiliated giants plus a shrinking set of independents — which is why the narrow federal HHI of 301 reads as unconcentrated even as the real FCM market concentrates. Recent deals (StoneX–R.J. O'Brien in 2025; Marex's roll-up of ED&F Man Capital Markets) underline the trend. [2][3]

9. Risks

The risk profile is the child's: interest-rate sensitivity (float income erodes in a falling-rate cycle); cyclical, volatility-driven volumes; market and counterparty risk from principal trading and OTC clients; clearing and liquidity risk; operational and fiduciary failure (the MF Global segregation lapse was fatal); fee compression against rising costs; concentration/systemic risk given so few carrying FCMs; regulatory and product uncertainty around swaps, crypto derivatives and event contracts; and private-company opacity. Full detail in 523160, Section 9. [3]

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public routes run through the same names: StoneX (SNEX) and Marex (MRX) as the closest to pure-plays, Interactive Brokers (IBKR) for a large but diluted futures arm, and the money-center banks (JPM, GS, MS) for the biggest FCMs bundled inside everything else. The exchanges — CME Group (CME) and ICE — are adjacent toll-road exposure to the same volume trends but are a different industry (523210). Private routes are equity or credit into FCMs, introducing brokers, market makers and commodity houses. A standing caution: an exchange-traded fund (ETF) or futures position gives you exposure to commodity prices, not to intermediary profits — the two move on different drivers. The near-term tone will be set by the path of interest rates (a tailwind to float income while rates stay high), the level of market volatility, and continued consolidation that keeps bidding up scarce FCM assets. For the complete how-to-invest and outlook discussion, see the leaf primer for 523160. [3]

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Definition — 523160 Commodity Contracts Intermediation," 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=523160&year=2022&details=523160
2. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 Economic Census — Concentration by Largest Firms / receipts, NAICS 523160 (523160/52316)," 2022. https://data.census.gov/table?tid=ECNBRANDDEAL2022.EC2252BRANDDEAL
3. Histometrics child primer, "Commodity Contracts Intermediation (U.S., NAICS 523160)," 2026 — synthesized detail on the investable universe, size (County Business Patterns 2023: 1,644 establishments, 22,288 employees, $7.44 billion payroll), consolidation, risks and outlook, with its own numbered sources [2]–. See primer-523160-DRAFT.md.
4. U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs): Registration and Requirements," 2026. https://www.cftc.gov/IndustryOversight/Intermediaries/FCMs/fcmib.html
5. U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "Segregation of Customer Funds," 2026. https://www.cftc.gov/IndustryOversight/Intermediaries/FCMs/fcmsegregationfunds.html
6. Futures Industry Association, "July 2025 Stats on Customer Funds Held at US FCMs," 2025. https://www.fia.org/fia/articles/july-2025-stats-customer-funds-held-us-fcms