This is the last in a four part series (interrupted, unfortunately, by about two weeks due to our recent move) that looks at commodity ETFs and ETNs. For the first three installments covering index-based, energy, and metals investment products, see these previous items:


Today, the subject is agricultural commodities, a sector that has underperformed other commodity groups so far this year with the added negative of severe contango in some areas. As shown below, the PowerShares DB Agriculture ETF (NYSEArca:DBA), the first agriculture-specific fund to hit the market in early-2007, continues to dominate the sector in both size and trading volume.
(Note: All year-to-date gains/losses are based on the May 22nd market close (consistent with the first three parts of this series) and the commodity offerings are listed in the order that they became available to the public.)

As of late-May, the $1.8 billion DBA fund (now at $2.5 billion according to the PowerShares website) sported a gain of just over five percent while the underlying commodities (i.e., equal weighting of corn, wheat, soybeans, and sugar) indicate an average gain of almost three times that amount.

This is one more indication of the toll that contango continues to take on commodity investment products, wheat now being the worst of this group whereas sugar was in severe contango a few months back.

Soybeans futures are actually in backwardation at the moment, meaning that it costs more to purchase the same size contract further out in time.