Like Professors Rouwenhorst and Gorton, he dug into commodity returns before the asset class was fashionable.
This gain, known as the "roll yield", was an important part of commodity returns.But financial speculation forced the futures price of some commodities well above the spot level, an unusual phenomenon known as "contango".
Stock and commodities returns both resemble bell-shaped curves.
Two-thirds of it is in Pimco's Commodity Real Return Strategy fund, which uses derivatives to capture the returns from the rising prices of commodities.
Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy fell nearly 36percentt in the fourth quarter and 43percentt for all of last year.
Jeff Layman, who co-manages $1.7 billion for BKD Wealth Advisors in Springfield, Mo., favors the Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy D fund (PCRDX), which mixes commodities with Treasury inflation-protected securities.
It is a lower-cost version of the Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy fund, and both portfolios are managed by Mihir Worah at Pimco.
The Oppenheimer Real Asset fund tries to mirror the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, while the Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy fund tries to track the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index.
One of the biggest such funds, PIMCO's Commodity Real Return Strategy fund, has seen assets grow four-fold.Once, the main way of benefiting from commodities was buying shares in mining companies.
One actively managed fund that Morningstar recommends is Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy, though Mr. Justice cautions that the expense ratio of its Class A shares, at 1.29 percent, is higher than he likes to see.
First, there is the Pimco Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund.
