Also affecting the market, analysts said, was heavy selling by commodity funds, which manage pools of speculative money.

She said the main sellers of bullion were commodity funds that follow computer trading programs.

Investment advisers generally do not recommend commodity funds for portfolios of less than $50,000 to $100,000.

Analysts said silver outperformed gold today on fresh buying from managed commodity funds.

Large profits made by many publicly offered commodity funds last year have surprised many.

There's a lot of money pouring into commodity funds, and that's bidding up crude futures.

Perhaps most important, gold commodity funds, which were heavy buyers, began taking profits.

You could also look at specialist unit trusts or general commodity funds with a high gold content.

Early in the second quarter, investors kept piling into commodity funds.

The largest distinction among commodity funds may be in the choice of benchmarks.