The CCI is a basket of 17 major raw commodity futures prices rolled into one composite index price.

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And judging by the price of futures contracts based on the Case-Shiller composite index, investors expect house prices to fall further.

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Chart Analysis : The PowerShares DB Dollar Bullish ETF ( UUP) follows the price performance of the Deutsche Bank Long US Dollar Futures Index.

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The Powershares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund ( UUP) is designed to track the price and yield performance of the Deutsche Bank long US dollar futures index.

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An even more telling argument is that commodities without futures markets (apples, edible beans) or futures markets where index funds did not get involved (milk, rice) also saw price rises during 2006-08.

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You can have a broker sell futures contracts on your behalf in Chicago, where traders have lately been betting that the house-price index in Los Angeles will fall only 11.5% over the next two years.

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The price of the cash index (we were doing MMI) was way, way above where the futures were trading.

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