When it comes to agricultural commodities, corn is king, but a wheat-specific exchange traded fund recently surpassed the corn ETF assets as more traders consider their options.
The Teucrium Wheat Fund (NYSEArca: WEAT), the lone wheat-specific ETF, has accumulated $68.0 million in assets under management while the Teucrium Corn Fund (NYSEArca: CORN), the only corn-specific ETF on the market,holds $66.3 million in AUM.
Sal Gilbertie, President, Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of Teucrium, pointed out that corn is also known as “King Corn” because in the U.S., we produce almost six-and-a-half times more corn than wheat – according to the latest USDA report for the current growing season, the U.S. produced 15.148 million bushels of corn compared to 2.310 million bushels of wheat. Additionally, there is almost 1.4 times more corn produced than wheat globally, with 1,065 million metric tons of corn harvested compared to 753 million metric tons of wheat.
The greater volume has also been reflected as greater interest for corn futures among options traders in the commodities market. CORN has also previously been the go-to among grains commodity-specific ETFs.
Gilbertie, though, argued that traders are growing more interested in WEAT for two reasons: greater awareness for agriculture-related investments and potentially supportive fundamentals.