Japan's budding asset class

Commodity prices continue to scale new heights, and Japanese investors who used to avoid the asset class are now looking to invest in commodity products to get better returns and diversify their portfolios

Double-digit growth in commodity prices - most notably energy and gold - has enticed even the most conservative of investors in Japan, and Asia in general, to take an interest in commodities as an asset class.

The spot price of West Texas Intermediate sweet crude, the common benchmark for oil, hit $66.25 a barrel on March 31, up from $55.31/bbl a year before - a 19.7% jump. The price of London gold fixings (pm) from the London Bullion Market Association surged by 17.9% between January 3 and April