| Summary: | Abstract
The price of staple commodities, represented by oil and copper, has rewritten the record many times over the past several years. It is experiencing a ���¢��������super spike���¢�������� which insiders forecast will last 10 years. According to a survey on 150 private banks, hedge funds, trust funds and pension funds made by Barclays, one third of the respondents held the stocks of staple commodities, 89% of institutions intended to purchase such stocks by 2008, and more than one third of institutions planned to raise the proportion of staple commodity stocks to over 10%. In 1998, Jim Rogers, a global investment guru, founded the Rogers Raw Materials Index, which was renamed the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI) afterwards. The index covers 38 commodities, including silk fabrics, soybean, gold and oil. During recent seven years, the RICI had soared more than 200%, compared with the US Treasury Bond Index which climbed merely 72% and the US Stock Index with only an 18% rise. The survey shows that the value of staple commodity stocks does have a close relationship with the price of staple commodities.
|
|---|