Two Great Reads You May Have Missed

Obviously I do a lot of curation here on the blog and I’m always sharing the reading material that I believe to be crucial for investors to be aware of. But the speed of life is ridiculous these days, everyone’s so busy they can barely hear themselves think – which is cool, better than having nothing to do.

But because of this pace, sometimes really important pieces of information passes us by and we miss it. I have two such examples below – posts by friends of mine that should definitely be read this week if you haven’t seen them yet.

First, Ben Carlson takes on the myth that commodities somehow offer “diversification benefits” and are a must-have sleeve for a long-term portfolio. It turns out that over long time frames, the opposite is the case – commodities are for trading, not for accumulating and holding.

Check it out:

Do You Need Commodities in Your Portfolio? (A Wealth of Common Sense)

Next up, Cardiff Garcia takes a look at the likelihood of the much-hoped for capital expenditure comeback for 2014. He notes that for all the chatter, there’s very little evidence that anything is really happening – a conclusion I agreed with in a post yesterday.

Here’s Cardiff:

The Capex Call (Financial Times) 

There are only so many hours in each day – choose your reading material carefully and make sure to read smart guys and gals.