London, 13 August 2011

Risk-Off Greets August: August Total Return: -6.40% (-1.52% YTD). As of August 11th, the S&P GSCI Index declined 6.40% on the month on the back of a 9.15% decline in the S&P 500 and 1.26% rally in the U.S. Dollar Index. Sharp global equity market corrections have pressured the economic sensitive commodity sectors, notably energy and industrial metals.

The S&P GSCI Industrial Metals Index has led index losses in August with a decline of 9.82% followed by 8.58% decline in the S&P GSCI Energy Index. Flight-to-quality flows have boosted the precious metals as measured by the S&P GSCI Precious Metals monthly increase of 5.52% for an YTD gain of 23.06%. Less economic sensitive commodities such as the agriculture and livestock sectors have fared better as measured by the monthly increase of 0.88% for the S&P GSCI Agriculture Index and 0.69% decline in the S&P GSCI Livestock Index.

Year-to-date, the S&P GSCI ended August 11th, with a YTD loss of 1.52% compared to a decline of 5.64% for the S&P 500 (TR). August 2011 marks one year since the announcement of QE2. Since August 26th, 2010, the day before FOMC chairman Ben Bernanke announced QE2 in a speech, the spot S&P GSCI has increased 23.64%, the S&P 500 Index (spot) has increased 11.98% and the U.S. Dollar Index has declined 9.96%.

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