HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Drew Voros  |

July 20, 2012

Commodity ETF Flows: Investors Flee Gold Funds, Grain Fund JJG Jumps 10%

Details

Investors pull $646 million from GLD and $93 million from IAU while energy funds see surge of inflows.

Investors ran to the exits on two largest U.S. gold funds this past week ending Thursday as commodity-related, exchange-traded products saw a total net outflow of $223 million.

Despite positive AUM gains in the majority of segments, commodity ETF flows were in the red thanks to precious metals funds, which lost a whopping $727 million in assets. The only other sector to see net outflows were industrial metals funds, losing $10 million in AUM.

Energy funds brought in the lion's share of new assets with $357 million, followed by agriculture with $111 million in inflows and broad market (multicommodity) with $40 million.

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

ETP Inflows/Outflows

Energy funds dominated creations with Market Vectors Oil Services (NYSE Arca: OIH) taking the top spot with $153 million, followed by SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (NYSE Arca: XOP) Alerian MLP (NYSE Arca: AMLP) with $94 million, United States Natural Gas (NYSE Arca: UNG) with $86 million and Market Vectors Agribusiness (NYSE Arca: MOO) with $55 million in inflows.

Gold funds clearly fell out of favor with investors. SPDR Gold (NYSE Arca: GLD) led redemptions with $646 million, followed by iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU) with $93 million in outflows, Energy Select SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLE) with $75 million, ProShares Ultra DJ-UBS Crude Oil (NYSE Acra: UCO) with $45 million and Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3X (NYSE Arca: ERX) with $31 million in outflows.

ETP Performance

Funds driven by the grain complex outperformed this past week. iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JJG) posted a 10.05 percent increase, followed by iPath Dow Jones-UBS Energy Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JJE) with an 8.33 percent jump, iPath Pure Beta Grain ETN (NYSE Arca: WEET) with an 8.21 percent gain, iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: OIL) with an 8.10 percent increase and ELEMENTS MLCX Grains – Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: GRU) round out the list with a 7.77 percent appreciation.

A mixed bag of funds underperformed: United States Metals Index Fund (NYSE Arca: USMI) lost 10.83 percent, followed by PowerShares DB Commodity Long ETN (NYSE Arca: DPU) with a 6.47 percent decrease, iPath Global Carbon ETN (NYSE Arca: GRN) with a 5.23 percent drop, ETRACS CMCI Livestock Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: UBC) with a 4.22 percent decline and iShares S&P Global Clean Energy (NYSE Arca: ICLN) lost 3.60 percent.

Fund Flows Data: (July 13 - July 19, 2012)

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.