Murray Coleman's "Financial Adviser" column in the Wall Street Journal took on commodity funds Monday morning, looking at the flows for several.

Coleman notes that with $21.6 billion AUM, the Pimco Real Return Strategy Fund [profile] has more than 40 percent of the asserts in commodity funds.

However, this giant fund as seen $1.7 billion in outflows so far this year, while the much smaller $5.1 billion Pimco CommoditiesPlus Strategy Fund has had inflows of $2.2 billion according to Morningstar data, Coleman writes. Coleman includes recent quotes from analyst reports, including this from Reuters' John Kemp:

The question is whether this performance is due to skill and can be sustained in (the) future…as traditional inefficiencies in the commodity markets are arbitraged away by the increased number of investors chasing them.

The column includes a nifty chart comparing which commodities the United States Commodity ETF held in March of 2012 vs. September 2012, showing how the investments in these funds can change.

To see the chart and to read what various analysts have to say about the future of commodity funds, read the original article. 

Edited by: Ben Geier


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