Back in February of this year we profiled a thinly traded ETF, Greenhaven Continuous Commodity (NYSEArca: GCC), which has run up 8.96% in just the past trailing one month period.
The recent rally has certainly been prodded along by higher agricultural commodity prices which have benefited from the July drought conditions here in many parts of the U.S.
The fund is designed to provide exposure to seventeen different commodities, both agricultural and energy related, in an equal weighted format. As one or more individual commodities may run or fall in price in the short term, skewing the weightings away from equal, the fund has a systematic re-balance that brings all of the holdings back to equal weights, thus locking in gains in those commodities that have run and adding to commodities that have fallen in price.
Commodities that are represented in GCC via futures contracts include Corn, Wheat, Soybeans, Live Cattle, Lean Hogs, Coffee, Cocoa, Sugar, Cotton, Orange Juice, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Copper, Natural Gas, Crude Oil, and Heating Oil.
Many ETF portfolio managers that are familiar with broad based commodity funds such as iShares GSCI Commodity (NYSEArca: GSG) and iPath DJ Commodity Index Total Return ETN (NYSEArca: DJP) for example are also in tune with the fact that these funds traditionally are over-weighted to energy commodities simply by the nature of the funds themselves and how they are constructed. The fact that GCC has a systematic equal weighting approach will likely appeal to those managers whom want exposure to commodities unrelated to energy, such as agricultural ones, represented better in the overall index.