MAKING a case that the stock market isn't expensive these days often means dragging Tina into the conversation.
Tina is short for "There is no alternative." It is a claim that after a decade of loose monetary policy and low interest rates, bonds, the traditional alternative to stocks, are no better a bargain than highflying stocks.
Yet there may be one alternative to stocks. Commodities got cheaper through much of the second quarter, adding to several years of mediocre-to-weak performance. Gold and silver were hit hard. So were materials that work for a living, such as iron ore, copper, oil (and substances refined from it), although some of them staged rebounds late in the period, as did many agricultural...