Weakness in the Agriculture space throughout much of 2014 is likely not news to anyone at this point, but it looks like one Ag commodity has been turning the corner at least in the short term.
CORN (Teucrium Com Fund, Expense Ratio 2.75%) has sprung to life in October, and the ETF itself has been trading reasonably heavier volume on about a 5% rally just in the past five days. The fund has about $110 million in assets under management, pulling in an insignificant $7 million or so in recent sessions.
Overhead we see the 50 day SMA of about $24.89, so Corn prices still have quite a bit of ground to make up thanks to the month over month decreases for much of this year. CORN, which debuted in 2010, remains the only “Corn Futures” specific ETP in the U.S. listed marketplace, and it is worth noting that the fund is structured as an ETF and not an ETN like some commodity focused exchange traded products tend to be.
We have seen instances when CORN will become quite popular when commodity minded managers look for exposure to it, and the assets may balloon accordingly. Although it is only about 10% of the asset size as the largest Agriculture focused ETP in the U.S. listed landscape, which would be DBA (PowerShares DBAgriculture Fund, Expense Ratio 1.01%), which has about $1.2 billion ETF, with currently a >12% weighting in Corn futures (the third largest holding in the broad based fund).
Other products that are benefitting to some degree with the recent Corn futures rally are RJA (ELEMENTS Rogers International Commodity Index – Agriculture Total Return ETN, Expense Ratio 0.75%) which actually has its highest weighting at the moment in Corn and Wheat (both approximately 13.61% allocations according to fund literature) and JJG (iPath Grains Total Return Sub- Index ETN, Expense Ratio 0.75%) which has an even heftier weight in Corn >44%.