The bleeding in commodity-related exchange-traded products didn't entirely stop last week, but it sure slowed down. Investors took out a relatively modest $280 million from said ETPs, dropping total assets to $161 billion. But assets are actually about $1 billion higher than last week, due to modest gains in most commodity prices.
In contrast to prior weeks, however, sector performance was rather uneven. In fact, three of the five sectors actually saw inflows, led by energy with $148 million. Agriculture and broad market (multi-commodity) ETPs followed, with $135 million and $54 million in inflows, respectively. The losers were the metals—precious metals and industrial metals-related products saw outflows totaling $494 million and $123 million.
This week's energy outperformance was thanks largely to the Energy Select SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLE), which saw $659 million in inflows. That more than reversed last week's slew of redemptions.
The No. 2 spot belonged to the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE Arca: MOO), a fund that has been seeing solid interest over the past couple of weeks. The fund saw $251 million in inflows on the heels of the prior week's $534 million. Incidentally, agricultural commodities were by far the strongest performers last week, with corn almost recovering the entire May price decline.
Rounding out the top five best performing ETPs list are the Market Vector Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), the SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (NYSE Arca: XME), and the ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Commodity (NYSE Arca: CMD) with inflows of $221 million, $201 million, and $81 million, respectively.
Just as XLE was responsible for energy's outperformance this week, the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) was responsible for precious metals' general underperformance. Investors removed $429 million of capital from the fund, more than reversing the prior week's $283 million in inflows.
Another silver fund, the PowerShares DB Silver Fund (NYSE Arca: DBS) followed suit with $107 million in outflows, which translated into a whopping 34 percent decline in total assets.
Taking the No.3 position on the redemptions list was the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (NYSE Arca: DBA) with $103 million in outflows. Recall that last week DBA saw $190 million in outflows. So for two weeks now we've seen outflows from DBA, but inflows into the aforementioned MOO. This trend indicates that investors seem to be favoring indirect exposure to agriculture through agribusiness equities over direct commodity price exposure.
Rounding out the worst performers list are the United States Oil Fund (NYSE Arca: USO) and SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD), which saw outflows of $99 million and $88 million, respectively.
Switching gears to price performance, agriculture-related ETPs were far and away the best performers as prices for corn, wheat, and soybeans surged. The ELEMENTS MLCX Grains Index Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: GRU) led with a 7.84 percent return, followed closely by the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Grains Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JJG) and iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: BAL), with returns of 7.58 percent and 7.45 percent, respectively.
Spots No.4 and No.5 were taken by the Teucrium Corn Fund (NYSE Arca: CORN) and the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Lead Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: LD), which gained 5.84 percent and 5.76 percent, respectively.
Clean/alternative energy ETPs made up the bulk of the worst price performers list, though iPath Pure Beta Aluminum ETN (NYSE Arca: FOIL) led with a 7.83 percent decline as aluminum warehouse stocks at the London Metal Exchange hit a record high. The Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSE Arca: TAN), iPath Global Carbon ETN (NYSE Arca: GRN), and Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: KWT) took the Nos. 2, 4, and 5 spots with losses of 6.51 percent, 5.88 percent, and 5.88 percent, respectively.
Fund Flows Data: May 13 - 19, 2011
Commodity ETF Weekly Flows By Asset Class
| | Net Flows
($,mm) | AUM
($, mm) | % of AUM |
| Agriculture | 53.64 | 12,486.81 | 0.43% |
| Broad Market | 134.87 | 16,308.78 | 0.83% |
| Energy | 148.12 | 36,273.83 | 0.41% |
| Industrial Metals | -122.52 | 3,644.77 | -3.36% |
| Precious Metals | -493.72 | 92,122.43 | -0.54% |
| Total: | -279.61 | 160,836.62 | -0.17% |
Top 5 Commodity ETF Creations
| Ticker | Name | Net Flows
($,mm) | AUM
($, mm) | AUM % Change |
| XLE | Energy Select SPDR Fund
| 659.15 | 9,263.93 | 7.66% |
| MOO | Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF
| 251.14 | 4,435.21 | 6.00% |
| GDX | Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF
| 220.93 | 6,505.96 | 3.52% |
| XME | SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF
| 201.49 | 1,216.03 | 19.86% |
| CMD | ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Commodity | 81.27 | 84.72 | 2,357.13% |
Top 5 Commodity ETF Redemptions
| Ticker | Name | Net Flows
($,mm) | AUM
($, mm) | AUM % Change |
| SLV | iShares Silver Trust
| -429.35 | 11,665.76 | -3.55% |
| DBS | PowerShares DB Silver Fund
| -107.01 | 208.06 | -33.96% |
| DBA | PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund | -103.17 | 3,256.90 | -3.07% |
| USO | United States Oil Fund | -98.78 | 1,671.46 | -5.58% |
| GLD | SPDR Gold Trust
| -87.79 | 57,171.98 | -0.15% |
Top 5 Weekly Performers (Excluding Leverage/Inverse, >1,000 Shares Traded)
| Ticker | Name | Weekly
Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM
($, mm) |
| GRU | ELEMENTS MLCX Grains Index - Total Return ETN | 7.84% | 923,858 | 30.47 |
| JJG | iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Subindex Total Return ETN | 7.58% | 1,470,385 | 320.69 |
| BAL | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Subindex Total Return ETN | 7.45% | 488,089 | 85.56 |
| CORN | Teucrium Corn Fund
| 5.84% | 1,138,001 | 129.89 |
| LD | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Lead Subindex Total Return ETN | 5.76% | 6,268 | 6.54 |
Bottom 5 Weekly Performers (Excluding Leverage/Inverse, >1,000 Shares Traded)
| Ticker | Name | Weekly
Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM
($, mm) |
| FOIL | iPath Pure Beta Aluminum ETN | -7.83% | 1,900 | 4.20 |
| TAN | Guggenheim Solar ETF
| -7.56% | 1,915,065 | 176.84 |
| LEDD | iPath Pure Beta Lead ETN | -6.51% | 1,380 | 5.54 |
| GRN | iPath Global Carbon ETN | -5.88% | 9,433 | 3.96 |
| KWT | Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF
| -5.88% | 415,010 | 33.24 |
Top 5 Volume Surprises (>$50mm AUM)
| Ticker | Name | Average Volume
(30 Day) | 1 Week Average Volume | % of Average |
| CMD | ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Commodity | 110,795 | 3,123,248 | 563.79% |
| RYE | Rydex S&P Equal Weight Energy ETF
| 50,222 | 975,408 | 388.44% |
| CRBQ | Jefferies TR/J CRB Global Commodity Equity Index Fund
| 56,265 | 833,243 | 296.19% |
| USCI | United States Commodity Index Fund
| 190,834 | 2,567,015 | 269.03% |
| MLPN | Credit Suisse Cushing 30 MLP Index ETN
| 50,593 | 643,683 | 254.46% |
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.