Buy low and sell high. It's pretty simple. The problem is knowing what's low and what's high.
Commodities tend to zig when the equity markets zag.
Following what everyone else is doing is rarely a way to get rich.
Most successful investors, in fact, do nothing most of the time.
It's a lot of fun finding a country that nobody knows about. The only thing better is finding a country everybody's bullish on and shorting it.
Tough times helped many commodities traders become lean and mean through consolidation, mergers and cost cutting. All that excess supply has been sopped up.