Commodity prices have not been kind to its proponents lately. Glencore is in doldrums, so is Noble, while over in the U.S., Cargill has been forced to shut down one its commodity funds. A group of bond guys in L.A. however, seem to think that now’s the perfect time to launch one of their own.
“DoubleLine Capital, the investment firm overseen by Jeffrey Gundlach, on Monday opened a new mutual fund to give investors exposure to commodities markets and help them diversify.”
That’s right, DoubleLine Capital has just unveiled the DoubleLine Strategic Commodity fund, a fund that Reuters says will seek long-term returns through a variety of long and short positions on “commodity-related investments, including through the use of derivatives and leverage.”
The portfolio manager appears to be Jeffrey Sherman, the long-haired wizard behind some of the firm’s derivative-based and multi-asset strategies, who had this to say regarding their new launch:
“A broad mix of commodities historically has shown low correlations to stocks, bonds and cash. So commodities can diversify a portfolio invested in traditional asset classes…In addition, commodities can serve as a hedge against unexpected inflation. Finally, incremental returns potentially can be obtained by exploiting the term structure of prices of individual commodities.”
As previously mentioned, now seems to be an importune time to be launching such a fund – could this be DoubleLine’s way of calling the bottom? These people are far from stupid, and there’s no way they’d take the time to manage something that wouldn’t earn its keep.
Photo: me and the sysop