The 'Indiana Jones of Finance'

Since his retirement, he has traveled around the world numerous times, written a number of best-selling books, taught at world renowned institutions, and worked as commentator for CNBC. All the while he has made interesting and against-the-grain investments that have earned him comfortable returns.

In 2007, seeing Asia as the next great investing frontier, Rogers packed up his things, sold his New York mansion, and moved to Singapore, where he currently resides with his family.

Rogers has long been bullish on commodities. In the late 1990s, when everyone was focused on the Internet, Rogers was looking at commodities such as zinc, oil and copper. Although they lacked the bells and whistles of the dot-com IPOs that were making headlines, Rogers was insistent that there was something to them.

To prove his point, he began studying the long-term charts and trends of these goods and concluded the prices of raw materials were at historic lows.

He enthusiastically searched for a commodities index fund to test his theory. Dissatisfied with what he found, he put together his own weighted index of 36 commodities that is quoted in four currencies across 11 international exchanges. It became known as the Rogers International Commodities Index.

The futures contracts making up the RICI track commodities include oil, aluminum, zinc and orange juice. Since its debut in 1998 to August 2009, the index is up more than 193%.