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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Madharry who wrote (34032)	4/3/2009 3:35:52 AM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78751

"In order to diversify a little and because i liked the charts i started positions in both DBA and JNK." This is a portfolio structural issue for me. One that I've just started working on, and where I am very lost. Specifically as regards commodities. Strange and disconcerting that we both seem to come to it at the same time. That is, if I understand correctly, we both want to diversify our assets (specifically our portfolios) to include a component called "commodities", and if possible or prudent or maybe advisable, have that hedged or offset or balanced with something else. DBA being a commodity play for corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar. etfconnect.com JNK of course being junk bonds. Theoretically (?) uncorrelated with DBA. Well we're all going to want different things from our portfolios. For me, at my age and station in life, I'll go for a structured portfolio that's a little better balanced with a mixture of presumably uncorrelated assets. If there are such assets. This past year has been a difficult year - either an anomaly or something surprisingly new and maybe longer with us than we want -- namely, that so many asset classes, maybe all of them, were correlated. Foreign stocks, domestic, growth, value, reits, commodities (?), bonds --- they are ALL down, and down substantially. I'm still reviewing what some financial advisers and writers are saying about having commodities in a portfolio. It seems that the general opinion is that it's been an anomalous situation and that it is good for somebody like me to have a commodity component in their portfolio. Within a couple/three years we can expect varying asset classes to outperform. Sometimes maybe common stocks, sometimes maybe real estate, sometimes commodities. And successfully predicting which will be the winner a-priori is not going to be realistic for most investors. I'm pretty much lost regarding which commodity funds or commodity etf's should be considered. I've got plenty of oil and gas stocks; I hold only a few AUY (gold producer); ADM, SFD (for pork), IPSU (sugar), ULTR (soybean transporter),but I'm looking for something more direct with the actual corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar commodities. Anybody else here with any suggestions relating to commodity funds or etfs, or how they are using commodities in their portfolio, please come in.

To: Madharry who wrote (34032)	4/4/2009 1:35:24 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78751

Commodity Funds: One that I've found recommended, and which is the most attractive to me so far, is PCRAX: pimco.com What I like is apparently getting a very good interest yield while waiting for commodity prices to improve. pimco.com What I don't like is that it is a front-end loaded fund. Which would initially take a big chunk of my commitment dollars. Also, this thing is pretty sophisticated for me, and very difficult to understand exactly what's going on. Of course, the fees/expenses pay for the presumably sophisticated people who manage these things. Having lost money in my few forays into Pimco funds, I'm not that enamored of either the Pimco organization or my decision-making process involving their products. On my own, without any financial expert to advise me, I'm reluctant to commit any monies to PCRAX. ================ Meanwhile, to diversify and increase my exposure to USA housing-related real estate, I've decided to do that through stocks again (rather than purchase rental property), and I've begun adding to my position in [t]UDR[/t] (<span style='font-size:11px'>LAST</span>: 9.37<span style='font-size:11px'> 4/3/2009 4:22:38 PM</span>) , and will add further if it drops back from current price on no adverse news. I've held varying amounts of this one since '98, and I'm comfortable with it. Nevertheless, I'm no expert regarding the company or its prospects, and being "comfortable" often leads me to worse results rather than better ones. si.advfn.com^UDR