Additionally, growing troubles in the Middle East, particularly from Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, pushed $1.2 billion into crude oil funds. [Oil ETFs Ride Crude Prices Higher on Supply Concerns]
“Demand for oil [ETFs] was the strongest since the second quarter of 2010 and, across all individual commodity [exchange-traded products], only gold and silver saw greater inflows,” ETF Securities added.
Natural gas, which is hovering around a decade low, also attracted investor interest as a “good entry point,” with natural gas ETFs adding $767 million in new assets.
However, commodity ETFs have begun to weaken over the past month.
“In the latter part of March, you started to see some tapering off,” Nicholas Brooks, head of research and investment strategy for ETFS, said in a CNBC report. “And what we’ve seen in the first weeks of April is similar to what we saw in late March. Concern about sovereign risk in Europe is coming back as well as concerns about China growth. Frankly, it’s rational. We had a pretty good run in the first ten weeks of this year.”
For more information on ETF fund flows, visit our ETF performance reports category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.