The recent success of commodities at the very time when other investments have hit a wall has produced the usual Pavlovian reaction on Wall Street. Many of the arguments presented on behalf of commodities as an investment class were the same as those presented at a similar conference held last December in Geneva, but with some notable and telling differences. Several speakers noted that the entire total return in commodities since 1994 can be attributed to crude oil. Not some of the gain, all of the gain. However, much of that gain until 2003 did not come from price appreciation but from the accumulated capture of backwardation in crude oil futures. This gain, which is created by producers' demand for insurance, has disappeared as more and more long-only indexed commodity funds entered the market, as discussed here in April.