| After one of the worst years in memory for commodity funds, even the few managers who found a way to make money last year say they expect a difficult start to 2015. Collapsing oil and grain prices caused havoc for commodity funds in 2014, with the average actively managed fund in the Lipper Global Commodity sector losing 14.35%. Big names abandoned the field altogether, and investors redeemed billions.
A handful of managers were nevertheless able to exploit the sudden mid-year surge in volatility and the fall in prices. But even they expect a difficult 2015 with pressure on prices to fall further. “It’s the worst place to be, but a long/short fund still has a lot of opportunities,” said Christian Gerlach, portfolio manager at Swiss & Global Asset Management, whose Julius Baer-branded commodity strategy was one of the few to perform well, up 6.09% in 2014...............................................Full Article: Source
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