Commodities more or less delivering as expected

New York

THE great commodities gold rush of the last decade may not have paid off exactly as investors hoped, but some evidence indicates that the asset class is performing more or less as advertised.

Commodities, commonly accessed by investing in exchange-traded commodities futures contracts, gained hugely in popularity in the first part of the last decade, as investors sought access to an asset class that they thought would give them equity-like returns, diversification and a decent risk profile.