Commodities investing is still fundamentally sound

Commodity investors may have had a bad year, but putting money into commodities of finite supply continues to makes sense

Globally, commodity assets under management plummeted from $418 billion at the end of 2012 to just $319 billion by the end of 2013, according to a February 14 report by analysts at Barclays. During the past few years, numerous commodity hedge funds have been forced to close amid disappointing returns, while December 2013 saw the largest monthly outflow from commodity index products since late 2011.

Nonetheless, commodities enjoyed a "surprisingly strong" start to 2014, helped by the impact of