their preferences on those product dimensions. Since a single commodity market is made up of many heterogeneous goods that are close to each other but different in grade, quality and delivery conditions, preference satisfaction plays an important role in improving trade matches. In cotton markets, for instance, a cotton merchant may want to specify his preferences like " I prefer early delivery...

The rapid growth of information technology over the past 20 years introduced the financial and commodity sectors to a new way of doing business. The financial markets saw the tremendous growth possibilities the new technology provided, and subsequently created the online trading platforms. As a result, customers could execute trades from personal accounts without the intervention of a broker. L...