A rough year for some commodities exchange traded funds got even more tumultuous in September as gold sank and investors scurried out of a spate of commodities ETFs.
In September, commodity ETFs experienced $1.05 billion in outflows, the largest monthly withdrawal since December, and saw more money redeemed for commodity-backed ETFs for the month than in the combined nine months of the year, reports Luzi Ann Javier for Bloomberg.
Exchange traded products offering exposure to agriculture commodities have been particularly hard hit. The PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (NYSEArca: DBA) lost $154.1 million during the third quarter. The iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSEArca: JO) and the iPath Pure Beta Coffee ETN (NYSEArca: CAFÉ) saw modest third-quarter outflows, a continuation of theme seen for coffee ETPs this year, despite the fact that JO and CAFÉ are two of this year’s top-performing non-leveraged ETPs. [Coffee ETNs Keep Perking Up]
Among agriculture and soft commodities ETFs, only DBA has seen more outflows than JO this year despite JO entering Thursday with a 2014 gain of 71.6%.
Some agriculture and soft commodities ETFs are bucking the outflows trends. Although it has tumbled 25% this year and currently resides near its 52-week low, the Teucrium Corn Fund (NYSEArca: CORN) added almost $83 million on a year-to-date basis as of Thursday, according to Bloomberg data. That number is exceeded by just eight other commodities ETFs.
Ideal weather conditions helped corn stalks produce more kernels than normal and increased seed pod growth in green soy plants. Speaking of soybeans, the Teucrium Soybean Fund (NYSEArca: SOYB) has seen modest inflows this year. [Bumper Crops Chase Investors From Ag ETFs]