Food, Forests, Fuel, and Real Estate

When looking beyond the short-term demand factors, there are several long-term secular themes that are positive for specialty assets. Most notably among them, growing populations, increasing spending power of the emerging market middle class, and rising urbanization. Since real assets (farmland, timberland, commercial real estate, and energy related assets) are generally considered to have long time horizons, investors should look to analyze long-term global trends in supply and demand that may impact values of these asset classes.