Barclays has launched a retail fund in Singapore directly tracking the performance of the Rogers International Commodity Index – Total Return.
The Global Commodities Delta Fund (SGD) is an open-ended structured fund that aims to provide a transparent commodity investment opportunity enabling investors to capture potential return by riding on the performance of the RICI – Total Return.
The fund achieves commodities investment exposure by linking with the RICI – Total Return, which is composed of more than 30 commodities in three main categories: energy, metals and agriculture. The diversified index constituents will be reviewed every year by a committee chaired by Jim Rogers.
Since its inception in August 1998 the RICI – Total Return has significantly outperformed other major commodity indices including the Dow Jones – AIG Index and the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, as well as other major Asia and world equity indices such as the MSCI AC Asia Index and MSCI World Index.
“The Global Commodities Delta Fund provides investors with exposure to the commodities market using a strategy which has historically proven profitable, and enables us to share the performance and investment insights of Jim Rogers. Despite equity and credit market volatility and global recession fears brought on by the sub-prime crisis, commodity markets have continued to perform strongly and have had a very strong start to 2008,” says Yong Sheng Tan, director of Investor Solutions, Barclays Capital in Singapore.
The fund will be distributed in Singapore through ABN Amro and Citibank.
Separately, Barclays launched a USD-denominated fund using an identical investment strategy in Hong Kong on 14 December 2007, and as at 28 March 2008 the Net Asset Value of this fund had increased by 13.92% .