For most investors, though, it's wiser to spread your money among a wide array of commodities and leave the management to professionals.
The huge trading and logistics operation, backed by a savvy business-intelligence unit, has a global presence in a vast array of commodities that far exceeds that of rivals such as Cargill or Trafigura.
Businesses big and small are getting a break these days as the European financial crisis and slowing growth in China, India and the United States have pushed down the prices of a wide array of commodities in recent weeks.
Many local health departments across the nation say they will have to curtail an array of services, including cancer and tuberculosis screening and children's dental examinations, to meet the needs of President Bush's federal smallpox vaccination program.
HOUSTON — The growing gloom about the economy has pushed down oil and gasoline prices, along with the prices of an array of other commodities.
The government has been unable to curtail rising prices of commodities, while appearing to spend lavishly on events like Vibrant Gujarat, an investment summit, and the Sadbhavana Fast, a one-day rally.
These include a mix of publicly (or incumbent) and privately (new entrant) provided services covering a wide array of origins, frequencies, commodities and equipment.
On the other hand, the design of costly, special-purpose processors for supercomputers has been supplanted by the use of large arrays of commodity processors (from several dozen to over 8,000) operating in parallel over a high-speed communications network.
"But surely the wider lesson is that a whole array of benchmark indices, across commodity markets and other traded products, are too easily prone to manipulation".
"The government has taken conscious steps to curtail imports of nonessential commodities, essentially precious metals.
While decades of deregulation have allowed lenders to offer students and homeowners more loans through a broadening array of financial products, those same forces have also curtailed government supervision of possibly abusive practices in the lending business, critics say.
