The commodities futures market has shown a strong, steady performance despite the existing global market volatilities, which analysts said were still part of the crisis aftershocks.

The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials traded worldwide as agricultural commodities has rallied in the past eight months riding at the back of a weaker dollar.

Among the agricultural commodities making a leap, cotton recorded higher prices due to a tightening of supply. The price of cotton delivery for December advanced 1.1 percent to $1.051 per pound on the ICE Futures U.S. in New York at 9:04 a.m. Singapore time. Analysts said this is the highest price attained in the last 15 years as China's consumption has continuously driven demand.

On the other hand, although the quality of the wheat produced may have been poor as a result of the La Nina weather pattern affecting wheat-producing countries such as Russia, this did not dragged down prices. It instead pushed up the price of wheat for December delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade by 0.7 percent to $7.2525 at 1:03 p.m. Melbourne time. The futures have gained 34 percent this year.

Investors are planning to increase their placements on commodity investments in the next three years as returns are seen to do better than historical averages, said an agricultural analyst for the Rabobank Groep NV in an interview today.

In a related report in March, Barclays Capital, the investment-banking arm of Barclays Plc, agreed with Rabobank Groep on this promising trade of commodities in the medium term.

Nevertheless, they have warned that commodities can also be affected in an instant by global and macroeconomic factors and global trends like the decline or upward movement of the US dollar should also be considered.