Most agricultural ETF investors are likely not familiar with investing in Wheat as a standalone investment product, and instead are used to utilizing broad based Ag funds such as PowerShares DB Agriculture (NYSEArca: DBA), iPath Pure Beta Agriculture (NYSEArca: DIRT) and U.S. Agriculture Index (NYSEArca: USAG) for example.
However, Teucrium rolled out Teucrium Wheat Fund (NYSEArca: WEAT) in September of 2011, not quite one year ago, and the fund is designed to invest in Wheat futures contracts and remains the only “pure-play” in the space offering exposure to Wheat.
The fund toiled through relative obscurity for much of 2012 until the drought conditions really started to put a stranglehold on the Eastern and Midwestern regions of the U.S., causing Wheat prices (as well as Food prices in general) to rise meteorically.
WEAT subsequently, began to see spikes in trading activity around this time beginning in early July of this year. Averaging only about 10,000 shares traded on a daily basis, WEAT’s trading volume has steadily risen over the past several months, registering several days of 20-60k share days.
The fund itself has performed wonderfully this summer in lockstep with rising Wheat prices themselves, having climbed 22.96% in the past rolling three month period and is now down about 0.61% since inception in 2011.