Timber Outperforms All Other Asset Classes
The next seven years will see timber outperform all other asset classes, forecasts Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist for Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo, which currently has $106-billion under management. Timber has produced annual returns that have often matched or outpaced the S&P 500 over the long term, but with notably less risk. Between 1971 and 2010, timber boasted average annual returns above 14%. In 2008, while the S&P fell 38%, the value of timberland rose 9.5%. When timber is compared to gold over the past dozen years (1991 thru 2010), timber wins by a wide margin of 11.6% annual gains, to gold's 7%, according to a Bank of America report.
So why then do most investors own no timber?
