Commodities for Dummies

by Amine Bouchentouf

Since 2002, commodities have outperformed every other asset class including stocks, mutual funds and real estate. If you’re itching to get in on the fun and profit, Commodities For Dummies is the resource you need to find out how to break into the commodities market and understand how to trade and prosper. You’ll Featuring time-tested rules for investment success, this comprehensive, user-friendly guide helps you minimize risk, maximize profit, and find the shortest route to Easy Street.

Genres: Ebooks, Business, Finance, Economics

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Amine Bouchentouf is a native English, Arabic, and French speaker born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco. Amine has been teaching Arabic and lecturing about relations between America and the Arab world in his spare time for over 4 years and has offered classes and seminars for students at Middlebury College, the Council on Foreign Relations, and various schools across the United States.
Amine graduated from Middlebury College and published his first book, Arabic: A Complete Course (Random House), soon after graduating college in order to help Americans understand Arabic language and culture. He has written Arabic For Dummies in an attempt to reach an even wider audience with the aim of fostering better relations through education.
He holds a degree in Economics from Middlebury and has extensive experience in the arena of international investing. He is a registered investment advisor and a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers. Amine is currently working on his third book, Investing in Commodities For Dummies (Wiley Publishing).
Amine is an avid traveler and has visited over 15 countries across the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. Aside from his interest in languages, business, and travel, Amine enjoys biking, rollerblading, playing guitar, chess, and golf. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Sylvester · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Commodities for Dummies” by Amine Bouchentouf is a mediocre read. Amine establishes a criterion for defining commodities that are deliverable and tradable and discusses what constitutes the value of each commodity as well as a bit about the corporations that process them. The author also provides a basic explanation as to how futures commodity markets operate and how to access commodity investments in a secondary fashion through equity markets. Other more contextual factors are discussed as well such as the rationale for why demand and returns on commodities are likely to increase over time (stating the obvious demand from the BRIC countries, etc.).

There are also a few sections on the use of leverage for trading stocks on margin and the various regulatory requirements that tend to characterize the various commodities. Amine also introduces the reader to the various indicators, indexes and exchanges that investors should consider tracking in addition to various risk management strategies such as the ebb and flow of business cycles and tracking of geopolitical risks, to provide two of several examples.

Overall, I’d say this book is more of a practical and detailed “how to” guide for interested investors as opposed to an in-depth knowledge source on the aforesaid topics. Thus, the only critique I have is that some of the chapters are repetitive. For instance, one chapter will be on energy companies whereas another will be on metals yet each of those chapters provides procedural advice on how to access investments in that commodity. But there is quite a bit of overlap in that procedural advice (for example, having to register with a futures trading commission). Thus, a reader only has to read that procedural advice once to get the drift and to begin accessing a range of commodity investments.

[Jethro Pieterse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overall book which gives all the technical how to start investing in commodities. It also offers a wide range of every single commodity.
I would recommend this book to any beginner or intermediate who is interested in getting a firm understanding of commodities. If you are interested in how to start investing in this market and which investment vehicle to use this book serves as a backbone for your learning arsenal.

[Chris Waterford · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not particularly helpful. Not enough details about "how to do it". Maybe it did its job by convincing me to stick to shares.