I'm not much of a commodities trader (eg im a commodities noob), since I mostly trade stocks and bonds. However I believe that a well-balanced portfolio should include commodities so that's why I have a small percentage of my portfolio managed by a commodity broker who chooses everything for me...
I recently read a book "Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market" by Jim Rogers and it was VERY VERY interesting, it actually helped me to better appreciate the STOCKS i owned. I think the 2 main ideas of the books are (and why commodities are different from stock market, to answer the OP's question) :
1) Commodities bull market run LONGER than stock market bulls, which gives the opportunity to small investors to get into the bull run for a quite a while.
2) "Usually" when the stock market slows down and is going down, the commodities market goes up (yes, i didn't know that till i read the book!)
The demand in commodities is growing rapidly because of China, I think it's time for most investors to look around this very special investing tool.
