Written by Sumit Roy  |

July 14, 2011

Commodity ETF Flows: Investors Rush Into Precious Metals

Details

All large precious metals ETPs saw substantial inflows over past week, but grains ETPs performed best.

Record highs in gold and one-month highs in the overall commodity sector spurred investors to finally deploy a large amount of capital into commodity-related exchange-traded products this week. Investors added $1.3 billion to the space, helping to send total assets to $168.6 billion.

But sector performance varied significantly. Precious metals completely dominated with inflows of $1.7 billion. The only other sector to see a net inflow was agriculture, with $135 million.

Energy was the biggest loser. The sector saw outflows of $459 million, while the broad market (multicommodity) and industrial metals sectors saw fractional outflows of $12 million and $11 million, respectively.

Given the week’s sector performance, it’s unsurprising that precious metals ETPs dominated the inflows list. Only the agriculture superstar, the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE Arca: MOO), had the inflows necessary to make it onto the top 5 list. The fund took the No. 4 spot with $145 million in inflows, taking its 10-week total to more than $1.5 billion.

The rest of the inflows list consisted of precious metals juggernauts, including the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD), iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU), iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), with inflows of $1 billion, $246 million, $150 million and $85 million, respectively.

Just as precious metals ETPs dominated the inflows list, energy ETPs dominated the outflows list. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLE), SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSE Arca: XOP), United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE Arca: UNG), United States Oil Fund (NYSE Arca: USO) and iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: OIL) took spots Nos. 1 through 5, with outflows of $262 million, $80 million, $54 million, $53 million and $29 million, respectively.

Hot Midwestern weather sent grain prices surging. In turn, grain-related ETPs were the top price performers this week. The iPath Beta Grains ETN (NYSE Arca: WEET), Teucrium Corn Fund (NYSE Arca: CORN), Elements MLCX Grains Index Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: GRU) and iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JJG) rose by 8.74 percent, 8.47 percent, 8.46 percent and 7.92 percent, respectively.

The UBS ETRACS CMCI Gold Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: UBG) was the only ETP unrelated to grains that made the list, with a 5.87 percent gain.

Finally, solar and cotton ETPs made up the bottom price performers list. The Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: KWT), Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSE Arca: TAN) and iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index Fund (NYSE Arca: ICLN) fell 9.37 percent, 7.76 percent and 7.21 percent, respectively.

The iPath Pure Beta Cotton ETN (NYSE Arca: CTNN) and iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: BAL) shed 8.93 percent and 8.19 percent, respectively.

Fund Flows Data: July 8 - July 14

Commodity ETF Weekly Flows By Asset Class

Top 5 Commodity ETF Creations

Top 5 Commodity ETF Redemptions

Top 5 Weekly Performers, Excluding <1,000 Shares Traded

Bottom 5 Weekly Performers, Excluding <1,000 Shares Traded

Top 5 Volume Surprises, Funds >$50 mm AUM

Disclaimer: Data provided by IndexUniverse. All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern the date of publication. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.