Jim Rogers's New Way To Ride Commodities Boom

Who better to orchestrate a way to capitalize on the commodities boom than raw materials investment guru, Jim Rogers?

The investor, best known for co-founding the wildly successful Quantum Fund with George Soros and author of Wall Street must-reads like Hot Commodities and A Bull in China, is teaming up with S-Network Global Indexes to launch The Rogers Van Eck Hard Assets Producers Index. Unlike the Rogers International Commodity Index, the new index tracks the performance of companies that deal in commodities--rather than performance of the commodities themselves.

As yet, neither the index nor related sub-indexes, are tied to investment products but S-Network Vice Chairman Joseph LaCorte said exchange-traded funds linked to the indexes are expected in the next few weeks.

"Investing in the companies that benefit from higher commodities markets like Exxon Mobile and Mosaic (nyse: MOS - news - people ) can be better than investing in futures markets because companies will benefit from higher margins for years to come," said S-Network's vice chairman, Joseph LaCorte.

Commodities prices have been steadily rising in the past few years as growing global populations become more affluent and increase their consumption of food and materials--hiking the world's appetite for raw materials. The Dow Jones AIG Commodities Cash Index has risen nearly 100.0% in the past five years. According to S-Network, back tests conducted on the new index show it would have risen 300.0% over the past five years.

"We think the bull market in commodities still have a long way to go, especially when you look at growth rates in China, India, the Middle East, North Africa and throughout most of the developing world, where demand for just about every commodity is rising at unprecedented rates," Rogers said.

The index comprises 310 stocks from around the world that combined, account for nearly 15.0% of the world's total stock market capitalization. The index divides companies across six sectors: energy, agriculture, base and industrial metals, precious metals and alternatives.

To be included on the index, at least half of a company's annual sales must come from the production or distribution of hard assets or related products and services--water companies being the only exception--among other restrictions. Topping the index are leaders in various agricultural and energy industries like Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ), Exxon Mobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ), and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (nyse: POT - news - people ).

"The RVEI is global, comprehensive and pure-play. It is also forward-looking, because it covers sectors, such as alternative energy and water, which have not been included in the hard assets category until now," LaCorte said.

S-Network will also publish five related indexes: The RVE Hard Assets Producers Composite, the RVE Hard Assets Producers Liquid Index of 50 Stocks, the RVE Energy Producers Index, the RVE Agricultural Producers Index and the RVE Metals Producers Index