Clearly however, the need for direct exposure to Cocoa futures is not something that every retail nor institutional investor has, so these funds may remain niche plays for commodity oriented managers whom like to play various agricultural related segments of those markets.
Cocoa exposure is more commonly gained via ETFs by portfolio managers (at least at this juncture) via broad based Agricultural commodity based ETPs like a GCC (Greenhaven Continuous Commodity Index, Expense Ratio 0.85%) or a DBA (PowerShares DB Agriculture, Expense Ratio 1.01%) for example which have 2.69% and 10.05% portfolio exposure respectively.
Cocoa futures have generally posted strong returns lately, rallying to new highs as recently as mid-October before falling back somewhat (NIB trading near its 50 day MA at the moment). Year to date NIB has attracted more than $10 million in net inflows when considering its asset base is substantial for the fund, while CHOC has net inflows of $1 million.
iPath DJ-UBS Cocoa TR Sub-Index ETN
