HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Drew Voros  |

June 15, 2012

Commodity ETF Flows: Investors Shift From Energy To Gold Funds, NatGas Fund UNG Top Performer

Details

After weeks of dominating inflows in the commodity space, energy funds see net outflows as capital moves to precious metals.

After several weeks of strong inflows, investors began exiting energy funds this past week as gold and silver funds were largely responsible for the $396 million in net inflows for commodity-related exchange-traded products.

Precious metals funds attracted more than $576 million in new investment capital, followed by $17 million in inflows to broad market (multicommodity) and $2.8 million that flowed into industrial metals.

Energy led outflows with $153 million in outflows, followed by agriculture with $48 million.

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

ETP Inflows/Outflows

Gold and silver funds dominated inflows. SPDR Gold (NYSE Arca: GLD) led inflows with more than $157 million, followed by iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU) with $138 million, Market Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX) with $112 million, iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) with $70 million and Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners (NYSE: GDXJ) taking in $64 million in new capital.

Energy funds occupied the top inflows, with Energy Select SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLE) losing $145 million in outflows, followed by Market Vectors Oil Services (NYSE Arca: OIH) with $63 million, iPath Dow Jones –UBS Commodity Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: DJP) with $37 million, Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X (NYSE Arca: ERX) with $28 million and United States Oil (NYSE Arca: USO) seeing $23 million in outflows.

ETP Performance

While energy funds were losing inflows, the group had four of the top five performers of the week, led by United States Natural Gas (NYSE Arca: UNG) with a 10.88 percent increase. That was followed by PowerShares DB Commodity Long ETN (NYSE: Arca: DPU) with a 10.66 percent gain, ELEMENTS Credit Suisse Global Warming ETN (NYSE Arca: GWO) jumping 10 percent, iPath Global Carbon ETN (NTSE Arca: GRN) rising 8.62 percent and EG Shares Energy GEMS (NYSE Arca: OGEM) adding 5.95 percent.

Energy also had three of the top five underperformers. Morgan Stanley S&P 500 Oil Hedged ETN (NYSE Arca: BARL) lost 9.72 percent, ELEMENTS MLCX Biofuels Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: FUE) dropped 6.18 percent, iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JO) shed 4.66 percent, Teucrium Soybeans (NYSE Arca: SOYB) fell 3.72 percent and ETRACS Natural Gas Futures Contango ETN (NYSE Arca: GASZ) dipped 3.7 percent.

Fund Flows Data: (June 8 - June 14)

Commodity ETF Weekly Flows By Sector

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.