Lipper focuses on commodity prices

The company's latest research report said commodity investing would continue its recent move to the mainstream.

"There have been times in the past when commodity investment was fashionable, only for investors to drift away again," Lipper said.

"This time appears to be different. There has been a growing trend among discretionary managers and advisers to treat commodities as a separate asset class with a valuable role as a portfolio diversifer."

Assets held in commodity, raw material and energy equity funds have risen by 800 per cent since 2004 to more than £54bn, according to the Thomson Reuters division. Furthermore, returns from commodities were second only to equities in 2009, according to comparative Dow Jones indices.

Timber was a commodity to watch, fund managers suggested, while further increases in gold and precious metal prices in 2010 were forecast by bankers and traders canvassed by the London Bullion Market. Attention was also turning to agricultural commodities due to growing food demand.