Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Commodities Asset Class
Commodities appears to be a very desirable asset class. It has near-zero correlation with stocks and bonds, is a good inflation hedge, and many advisors, including Asset Allocation author recommend it. The trouble is that indexing choices in this class are few, and they are somewhat active, and they have very high fees. Some relevant information:
The Funds:
Two leading commodities "index" (they are actually active) funds:
Oppenheimer Real Asset fund (QRAXX)
Pimco Real Return fund (PCRDX)
SSGA: another possible fund
Merryl Lynch Commodities Index-like Active Fund
The Articles:
Frank Armstrong of fee-only-advisor.com pro-commodities article.
Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI®) description article at Goldman Sachs.
TechUncovered opinion of commodities
An article on financialsense.com summarizing advantages of commodity indexing
Somewhat chilling article about Oppenheimer Real Asset commodities fund on financialadvisormagazine.com
Many articles show up by doing a search for either of the above symbols on finance.yahoo.com, e.g.:
General commodities overview article on Yahoo briefly outlining commodities fund choices.
