HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Drew Voros  |

February 03, 2012

Commodity ETF Flows: Investors Flock To Precious Metals Funds, Exit Energy

Details

Solar funds outperform while commodity-related outflows top $333 million behind energy exodus.

Investors took out more than $1.1 billion from energy exchange-traded products for the week ending Feb. 2, which more than offset the $837 million that flowed into precious metals. Commodity funds combined lost $333 million.

The other commodity classes all saw outflows for the week. Broad market (multicommodity), agriculture and industrial metals saw outflows of $21 million, $19 million and $5 million, respectively.

Exchange-traded products (ETPs) include exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded vehicles (ETVs) and exchange-traded notes (ETNs).

ETP Inflows/Outflows

Gold funds continued to enjoy investor reaction to the Federal Reserve’s Jan. 25 announcement that it would keep interest rates low through 2014, a move that many see depressing the U.S. dollar and helping assets like precious metals.

For the second week in a row, the SPDR Gold (NYSE Arca: GLD) lead commodity-related funds in inflows, with $340 million, followed by iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU), Market Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX), Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX) and JP Morgan Alerian MLP ETN (NYSE Arca: AMJ).

Energy funds dominated the top outflows. The Energy Select SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLE) saw $944 million pulled out by investors. The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (NYSE Arca: XOP) came in second, with $126 million, followed by United States Oil (NYSE Arca: USO), SPDR S&P Metals and Mining (NYSE Arca: XME) and iShares S&P North American Natural Resources (NYSE Arca: IGE) with outflows of $117 million, $65 million and $20 million, respectively.

ETP Price Performance

Alternative energy funds outperformed this past week, led by the iPath Global Carbon ETN (NYSE Arca: GRN) with an increase of 23.46 percent, followed by Market Vectors Solar Energy (NYSE Arca: KWT), ETRACS CMCI Long Platinum Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: PTM), Guggenheim Solar (NYSE Arca: TAN) and Market Vectors Rare Earth/Strategic Metals (NYSE Arca: REMX) with gains of 8.1 percent, 7.6 percent, 5.96 percent and 4.96 percent, respectively.

Agriculture funds populated the underperformers, which was led by iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cocoa Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: NIB) with a loss of 8.71 percent, followed by iPath Dow Jones-UBS Lead Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: LD), iPath Pure Beta Seasonal Natural Gas ETN (NYSE Arca: DCNG), iPath Dow Jones-UBS Sugar Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: SGG) and Teucrium Sugar (NYSE Arca: CANE), with declines of 7.27 percent, 5.49 percent, 4.33 percent and 4.03 percent, respectively.

Fund Flows Data: January 27 - February 2

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.