The name of the book is called “Hot Commodities” and it is written by a rather famous author, Jim Rogers. Many of us may not have heard of Jim Rogers before but a good number of us must have heard of George Soros. Anyway, Jim Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros and that's where he made his money and was able to retire at the age of 37! Since then he took time off to travel the world on a motorcycle and after he came back, he wrote two more books about his experience: Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker.

What I find really interesting about the book is that it is more of a practical investment advice for ordinary people like you and me rather than an economic textbook with lots of incomprehensible equations and graphs. Admittedly, this whole concept of buying into “real” commodities such as oil, natural gas, sugar, coffee, gold etc. rather than the companies that produce or mine these commodities, is new to me. Jim Rogers is a good storyteller and most important of all, he put his money where his mouth is by starting his own commodities index fund in 1998.

Essentially, what he is saying is that the next bull market is already here and it is likely to continue well into the next decade. According to Jim Rogers, there are two main themes driving the prices of commodities: demand/supply and the economies of India and China. In fact the two driving forces are interrelated. The resurgence of the two economies with a combined population of over 2 billion will translate into massive demand for the basic materials of everyday life such as sugar, coffee, cotton, corn, copper, or crude oil. As for the supply side, the world is using 2 barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. So you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out which way the price is going to go when you have rising demand with limited supply.

The book is a must-read for those that want to invest in commodities and for those that would like to participate in the next bull market. The book is retailed at Baht 995 and available from selected branches of Asia Books.