Diploma Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Essen, language: English, abstract: Commodities have become an important tool in portfolio management strategies due to their good performance, the bullish outlook for this asset class over the next decade with commodity prices setting new highs and in contrast, the highly volatile performance of stocks and bonds as well as the major equity crashes in recent years. This book analyses why and which commodities should be added to your portfolio. It gives a thorough introduction and analyses: . Basic concepts of portfolio management and commodities . Different investment exposures to commodities . Return decomposition of commodity futures . Evidence that commodities constitute an asset class . Comparison of the different asset classes regarding risk, return and correlation as well as the performance analysis of the single asset classes with regard to the business cycle and inflation . Efficient frontiers of portfolios with and without commodities over different periods of time The key objective of this study is to investigate how commodities as an asset class influence the risk-return-ratio of a traditional portfolio in a passive investment strategy over various periods of time.