HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Drew Voros  |

December 07, 2012

Commodity ETF Flows: Precious Metals Funds Attract Investors Despite Falling Prices; Gold Mining ETFs Sink

Details

While GLD and SLV lead inflows, funds related to gold mining fall in a performance hole.

Slumping precious metals prices over the last week didn’t keep investors from sending new investment capital to physically backed bullion funds, as once again precious metals funds attracted the most new money in the last week.

Those strong precious metals inflows helped propel commodity-related, exchange-traded products in collecting more than $401 million in new investment capital.

Precious metals raked in $361 million, followed by broad market (multicommodity) with $84 million, industrial metals with $13 million and agriculture with $11 million.

Energy was the lone sector with outflows, which totaled $68 million.

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

ETP Inflows/Outflows

Physically backed precious metals funds were a strong magnet for inflows, led by SPDR GOLD (NYSE Arca: GLD) at $248 million, followed by iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) with $81 million, iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU) with $52 million, PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking (NYSE Arca: DBC) with $50 million and Market Vectors Oil Services (NYSE Arca: OIH) collecting $37 million in new inflows.

Energy and mining funds led outflows, led by JPMorgan Alerian MLP ETN (NYSE Arca: AMJ) with $99 million, Market Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX) with $65 million, ProShares Ultra DJ-UBS Crude Oil (NYSE Arca: UCO) with $33 million, SPDR S&P Metals and Mining (NYSE Arca: XME) with $27 million and United States Oil (NYSE Arca: USO) seeing $26 million in outflows.

ETP Performance

There was a mixed bag of funds atop the best performers list, led by Teucrium Soybeans (NYSE Arca: SOYB) with a 3.18 percent increase, followed by Global X China Energy (NYSE Arca: CHIE) with a 3.01 percent gain, EG Shares Energy GEMS (NYSE Arca: OGEM) with a 2.93 percent jump, First Trust ISE Global Platinum (NYSE Arca: PLTM) with a 2.38 percent appreciation and PowerShares Global Coal (NYSE Arca: PKOL), which grew 2.25 percent.

Gold mining funds crowded the top of the worst performers, led by iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: RING) with a 5.30 percent decline, followed by Market Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GDX) with a 5.23 percent fall, Global X Pure Gold Miners (NYSE Arca: GGGG) with a 5.16 percent slide, United States Gasoline (NYSE Arca: UGA) with a 5.02 percent drop and Global X Gold Explorers (NYSE Arca: GLDX), which saw a 4.61 percent fall.

Fund Flows Data (Nov. 30 - Dec. 6, 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.