Buy commodities for portfolio balance

Article Excerpt

Most commodity production is capital intensive with long development times. Producers face considerable costs to establish or replace mines, oilfields, and so on, or to build processing, storage and transportation facilities. This means that the selling prices of their products can vary significantly from the time of their initial investment decisions. That adds uncertainty. However, the long-term outlook for Resource prices is positive—given a shortage of new mines on the horizon—and commodity producers can be an attractive addition to a balanced portfolio. The supplement on page 29 discusses the longer-term returns and risks involved with investing in commodities and, as we prefer, top producers. ISHARES S&P/TSX GLOBAL BASE METALS ETF $20.64 (Toronto symbol XBM; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $247.9 million) provides exposure to companies involved in the production, refining, and marketing of base metals. It tracks the S&P/TSX Global base Metals Index. The main country exposures are Canada (41%), the U.S. (31%), Australia (11%), the U.K. (10%), and Peru (6%). Industry exposures include…