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The flood of investor cash that has helped drive up the prices of everything from oil to platinum this year is slowing amid worries prices could fall and evidence some of the popular commodity investment products have failed to live up to their promises. Investors plowed a record $50 billion into commodities this year, helping drive prices for crude oil up 79% and gold 23%, but just $2.2 billion of new money flowed into commodities in October. That would mark the lowest monthly inflow since July -- when threats of market regulation briefly unnerved investors -- and the second-lowest since November 2008. On a quarterly basis, inflows into commodity investments have fallen from about $22 billion in the first quarter to $17 billion in the second and $11 billion in the third. The inflows already are more than triple those of 2008. On Thursday, gold closed at a record $1088.70 an ounce. Many commodity investors missed out on the big gains because they invested in index funds designed to track different commodities, and in many cases those funds didn't do as promised. Other funds have had to stop taking new investments because they became too big for their markets. But many investors are now worried the liquidity-fueled rally in commodities may soon be over. They say the weakness in the dollar, which has helped drive commodities higher, may soon come to an end. When it does, commodity prices may swing back drastically. Increased worries about tougher regulations down the pike and disappointing returns from some exchange-traded funds are combining to drive investors to look elsewhere. Bob Jergovic, chief investment officer of CLS Investments, which oversees $3.7 billion in assets, said he has dialed down the allocation to commodities in some funds to 2% from 10% in the past month. 'If the dollar starts to firm up, it might take some heat out of commodities,' he said. 'That's the biggest concern; we want to be on the right side.' He moved into U.S. stocks. Barclays speculates some of the slowdown in inflows is also attributable to disappointment on the part of investors, who had anticipated they would be getting higher returns for commodities. Commodities typically are the first to rise coming out of a recession, peaking before stocks. But even though raw commodity prices have soared, many funds linked to those assets -- exchange-traded funds in particular -- have vastly underperformed. 巴克莱银行(Barclays)推测,资金流入放缓, 在一定程度上也是投资者的失望情绪所致;投资者本来以为会从大宗商品中获取更高的回报。一般来讲,在经济走出衰退的时候,大宗商品价格会最先上涨,比股市 更早达到顶点。但是,在原料大宗商品价格已经大幅上涨的情况下,很多跟这些资产挂钩的基金、特别是交易所买卖基金,表现却远远不及。
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