Funds Seen Leaving Commodities Due to Lackluster Returns

Pension funds and other institutions are retreating from popular investments linked to commodities after finding they did little to protect their portfolios against inflation risk and the unpredictable returns of stocks.
Investors have yanked nearly $10 billion from tradable indexes tied to energy, food, metals and other commodities after two years of record outflows. That leaves about $133 billion, said Kevin Norrish, a managing director at Barclays PLC.
The trend is accelerating this year, analysts and investors said, driven by lackluster returns and looming U.S. regulations that could make these investments more complicated and costly.