Granted, the product has a very limited history, having debuted in September of 2011, but a more established fund in the Sugar space, iPath DJ-UBS Sugar Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSEArca: SGG) also it toiling near multi-month lows, as is related ETN iPath Pure Beta Sugar (NYSEArca: SGAR).
Year to date, SGAR is down 15.43%, CANE has lost 11.02%, and SGG has fallen 7.40%. None of these ETF/ETN products trade on a frequent basis, and published bid/ask spreads can potentially be fairly wide. This should be expected to some extent because Sugar futures only trade during the hours of 9AM-130PM EST and the commodity itself is more of a niche play than anything else, and may not be followed heavily and/or appeal to as broad a base of investors as say Gold or Crude Oil for instance.
That said, it is still possible to trade with efficiency in these products, it simply entails being cognizant of the hours of optimal liquidity for the underlying, which is directly tied to the exchange hours where sugar futures are trafficked the most, as well as input and know-how from a seasoned ETF execution desk that understands that volume (or in this case lack of volume), and width of published bid/ask spreads only tell a part of the story.
Teucrium Sugar Fund
