HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Drew Voros  |

June 22, 2012

Commodity ETF Flows: Energy & Precious Metals Rule Inflows; NatGas Fund GAZ Jumps 16.9%

Details

Commodity funds attract nearly $1 billion in new assets, driven by MLP fund AMJ's share caps.

Investors added nearly $1 billion to commodity-related, exchange-traded products this past week. Precious metals funds continue to attract strong inflows, while the energy-focused JPMorgan Alerian MLP ETN (NYSE Arca: AMJ) brought in a healthy $408 million after announcing a cap in the numbers of shares.

Energy funds, driven by AMJ, attracted $431 million in inflows, followed by precious metals with $398 million, broad market (multicommodity) with $96 million, and industrial metals with $1.4 million in inflows.

Agriculture was the lone sector to register net outflows, as $11 million flowed out of the segment.

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

ETP Inflows/Outflows

JP Morgan Alerian MLP ETN (NYSE Arca: AMJ) ruled the top inflows charts this week after JP announced it would cap shares, which attracted investors hoping to capture a future premium. AMJ gained $408 million in new inflows, followed by SPDR Gold (NYSE Arca: GLD) $219 million, SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (NYSE Arca: XOP) with $132 million, iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) with $119 million and SPDR S&P Metals and Mining.

Energy funds also dominated the top outflows of the week: Market Vectors Oil Services (NYSE Arca: OIH) came in first with $100 million, followed by Energy Select SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLE) with $89 million, Makret Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX) with $37 million, United States Natural Gas (NYSE Arca: UNG) with $36 million and Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X (NYSE Arca: $36 million) with $30 million.

ETP Performance

Energy and ag funds were the best performers for the past week, led by iPath Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: GAZ) with a $16.94 percent jump. ELEMENTS MLCX Biofuels Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: FUE) followed with a 10.69 percent return. Other top performers included Teucrium Agricultural (NYSE Arca: TAGS), which increased 7.43 percent, iPath Pure Beta Grains ETN (NYSE Arca: WEET) at 6.61 percent and ETRACS CMCI Agriculture Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: UAG), which rose 5.57 percent.

PowerShares DB Commodity Long ETN (NYSE Arca: DPU) led the worst-performing funds with a drop of 10.74 percent, followed by United States Brent Oil (NYSE Arca: BNO) with decrease of 8.51 percent, iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: OIL) shed 7.54 percent, United States Oil (NYSE Arca: USO) declined 7.17 percent and Market Vectors Junior Miners (NYSE Arca: GDXJ) lost 6.66 percent.

Fund Flows Data: (June 15 - June 21)

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.