For much of the past decade, investing in raw materials has looked like a slam-dunk, as rising prices held out the prospect of big gains and the proliferation of exchange-traded funds made placing bets easier.
The trend of rising commodity prices in recent years helped fuel a belief that is now common among financial advisers and pension managers: that ordinary investors should have some slice of their long-term money parked in commodities.
But there's a case against commodities, too: the human tendency to feed our appetites ever more efficiently, which periodically undercuts commodity prices and in extreme cases has even wiped out entire markets.
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