By Sumit Roy
All large precious metals ETPs saw substantial inflows over past week, but grains ETPs performed best.
Record highs in gold and one-month highs in the overall commodity sector spurred investors to finally deploy a large amount of capital into commodity-related exchange-traded products this week. Investors added $1.3 billion to the space, helping to send total assets to $168.6 billion.
But sector performance varied significantly. Precious metals completely dominated with inflows of $1.7 billion. The only other sector to see a net inflow was agriculture, with $135 million.
Energy was the biggest loser. The sector saw outflows of $459 million, while the broad market (multicommodity) and industrial metals sectors saw fractional outflows of $12 million and $11 million, respectively.
Given the week’s sector performance, it’s unsurprising that precious metals ETPs dominated the inflows list. Only the agriculture superstar, the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE Arca: MOO), had the inflows necessary to make it onto the top 5 list. The fund took the No. 4 spot with $145 million in inflows, taking its 10-week total to more than $1.5 billion.
The rest of the inflows list consisted of precious metals juggernauts, including the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD), iShares Gold Trust (NYSE Arca: IAU), iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), with inflows of $1 billion, $246 million, $150 million and $85 million, respectively.
Just as precious metals ETPs dominated the inflows list, energy ETPs dominated the outflows list. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLE), SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSE Arca: XOP), United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE Arca: UNG), United States Oil Fund (NYSE Arca: USO) and iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: OIL) took spots Nos. 1 through 5, with outflows of $262 million, $80 million, $54 million, $53 million and $29 million, respectively.
Hot Midwestern weather sent grain prices surging. In turn, grain-related ETPs were the top price performers this week. The iPath Beta Grains ETN (NYSE Arca: WEET), Teucrium Corn Fund (NYSE Arca: CORN), Elements MLCX Grains Index Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: GRU) and iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: JJG) rose by 8.74 percent, 8.47 percent, 8.46 percent and 7.92 percent, respectively.
The UBS ETRACS CMCI Gold Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: UBG) was the only ETP unrelated to grains that made the list, with a 5.87 percent gain.
Finally, solar and cotton ETPs made up the bottom price performers list. The Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: KWT), Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSE Arca: TAN) and iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index Fund (NYSE Arca: ICLN) fell 9.37 percent, 7.76 percent and 7.21 percent, respectively.
The iPath Pure Beta Cotton ETN (NYSE Arca: CTNN) and iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSE Arca: BAL) shed 8.93 percent and 8.19 percent, respectively.
Fund Flows Data: July 8 - July 14
Commodity ETF Weekly Flows By Asset Class
| Net Flows ($,mm) | AUM ($, mm) | % of AUM | |
| Agriculture | 134.59 | 13,439.19 | 1.00% |
| Broad Market | -12.29 | 16,105.09 | -0.08% |
| Energy | -458.53 | 34,820.47 | -1.32% |
| Industrial Metals | -11.41 | 3,105.71 | -0.37% |
| Precious Metals | 1,687.80 | 101,174.81 | 1.67% |
| Total: | 1,340.17 | 168,645.27 | 0.79% |
Top 5 Commodity ETF Creations
| Ticker | Name | Net Flows ($,mm) | AUM ($, mm) | AUM % Change |
| GLD | SPDR Gold Trust | 996.80 | 62,650.94 | 1.62% |
| IAU | iShares Gold Trust | 245.56 | 7,672.60 | 3.31% |
| SLV | iShares Silver Trust | 149.69 | 12,201.60 | 1.24% |
| MOO | Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF | 145.20 | 5,901.96 | 2.52% |
| GDX | Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF | 84.83 | 7,360.23 | 1.17% |
Top 5 Commodity ETF Redemptions
| Ticker | Name | Net Flows ($,mm) | AUM ($, mm) | AUM % Change |
| XLE | Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund | -262.35 | 8,838.36 | -2.88% |
| XOP | SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF | -80.05 | 920.72 | -8.00% |
| UNG | United States Natural Gas Fund | -53.91 | 1,850.08 | -2.83% |
| USO | United States Oil Fund | -52.80 | 1,293.97 | -3.92% |
| OIL | iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return ETN | -29.26 | 578.78 | -4.81% |
Top 5 Weekly Performers, Excluding <1,000 Shares Traded
| Ticker | Name | Weekly Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM ($, mm) |
| WEET | iPath Pure Beta Grains ETN | 8.74% | 8,016 | 6.68 |
| CORN | Teucrium Corn Fund | 8.47% | 1,011,418 | 131.68 |
| GRU | ELEMENTS MLCX Grains Index Total Return ETN | 8.46% | 425,635 | 27.75 |
| JJG | iPath Dow Jones UBS Grains Subindex Total Return ETN | 7.92% | 936,993 | 299.32 |
| UBG | UBS E-TRACS CMCI Gold Total Return ETN | 5.87% | 2,600 | 7.13 |
Bottom 5 Weekly Performers, Excluding <1,000 Shares Traded
| Ticker | Name | Weekly Performance | Weekly Volume | AUM ($, mm) |
| KWT | Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF | -9.37% | 356,754 | 26.24 |
| CTNN | iPath Pure Beta Cotton ETN | -8.93% | 20,350 | 5.10 |
| BAL | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Subindex Total Return ETN | -8.19% | 621,480 | 48.05 |
| TAN | Guggenheim Solar ETF | -7.76% | 1,669,969 | 148.67 |
| ICLN | iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index Fund | -7.21% | 206,626 | 65.69 |
Top 5 Volume Surprises, Funds >$50 mm AUM
| Ticker | Name | Average Volume (30 Day) | 1 Week Average Volume | % of Average |
| NUGT | Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 2X Shares | 271,648 | 2,793,112 | 205.64% |
| JO | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Subindex Total Return ETN | 54,979 | 546,578 | 198.83% |
| SGG | iPath Dow Jones-UBS Sugar Subindex Total Return ETN | 78,567 | 771,087 | 196.29% |
| GCC | GreenHaven Continuous Commodity Index Fund | 175,254 | 1,706,896 | 194.79% |
| MLPL | UBS E-TRACS 2X Monthly Leveraged Long Alerian MLP Infrastructure ETN | 55,654 | 535,002 | 192.26% |
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.
