Let me preface this piece by saying I stole this specific instrument from Jeffrey Saut, who mentioned it in his weekly missive.

Long time readers will know I've mentioned this market has become all about asset allocation, and sectors - I noticed this late in 2007 when we were hiding out in commodities while many other sectors were imploding but other than a few periods when "everything" is going down (or up) it appears a lot of individual stock selection is going out the window and "sectors" are more important. Some themes are broad like "China" or "commodities" (which in many ways are now the same theme), where others are narrower such as "casual dining restaurants". I don't know if its the dominance of program trading or the growing popularity of ETFs but this seems to be a secular change in the stock market. When a sector is hot - even one with such diverse entrants as casual dining restaurants - and you can simply throw a dart and be a winner, no matter which individual stock you choose.

Obviously we've been talking about the (now) very crowded reflation trade... in countless posts in first half 2008 I used to say "throw a dart, it all works" in the commodities space. Natural gas = oil = copper = wheat = potash = iron = coffee = coal. It's all the same to this market and the HAL9000s of the program trading parade. I see the same thing now ex natural gas (the commodity). While I think this is an overcrowded theme right now, prone for a correction - I do believe it is the ultimate 'correct' direction... but the crowd might be ahead of itself.

So one way to have exposure to the very broad "energy" "reflation" "commodity" "China / Brazil" trade is an ETF - most are focused on niches, but Saut mentioned a closed end fund Blackrock Energy and Resources (BGR) and when I looked at its holdings; it has exposure up and down the daisy chain. Now this is a closed end fund, not an ETF so these trade at a discount / premium to NAV - which means part of your risk / return is dependent on the variance versus NAV. The fund is currently trading at a 3.6% discount to NAV but that is actually at the top end of its historical range (0 to -15% discount). But if you want to kep it simple and want to have a broader exposure to the energy spectrum then you would with just a subsector of energy such as coal (May 20, 2009: Market Vectors Coal (KOL) Red Hot),, this looks like a comprehensive way to do it.