Newly launched website Financial Expert has been covering the topic of commodities this week. Financial Expert, which covers topics such as List of Physical Gold ETFs and How to Invest in Commodities, has been looking at the wonderful, risky and often confusing world of commodities and commodity trading for the individual investor. By individual investor, I’m talking about your average armchair investor, as apposed to a professional investor who works for an investment bank, commodities trading firm or life assurance arm.

Private investors often have limited paths into certain types of investments, but as Financial Expert’s article highlights, there are actually multiple ways through which a private investor can get access to the seemingly ‘ever-rising’ commodity prices, although the author is quick to warn that historical prices are never a good decision making basis. In fact, in an intriguing move, the author almost seems to warn against investing in commodities for the same reasons everyone else is.

I presume this is the similar line of thought to the famous investor Warren Buffet who famously said ‘Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy’. Right now in the commodities markets it would seem, the majority of investors are becoming greedy. That said, the real (adjusted for inflation) price of gold is still no where near the highs of the 1980s, although given that we accept that was a bubble – we don’t really want prices to return anywhere near that level, regardless of the bulls objections that ‘we are in a new commodity paradigm’, as is the infamous call of the bubble market investor.