The PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (NYSEArca: DBC), the largest broad commodity-related exchange traded fund, is up nearly 3% this year, an ascent boosted by the weak U.S. dollar. The The PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSEArca: UUP), the exchange traded fund proxy for the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), is off 3.2% this year.
UUP tracks movements against a basket of currencies including euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. The ETF’s struggles to start 2018 are prompting some traders to boost bearish positions on the fund. The dollar’s bearish gyrations are proving to be good news for oil and other commodities ETFs.
“Copper, palladium, and more recently platinum and gold have all seen a pickup in the last three months following the more pervasive dollar weakness,” reports CNBC. “This is a huge relief for commodities exporters, particularly across many natural resource-dependent countries in South America and Africa, which saw their economies tank when commodity prices plummeted in 2015.”
The $2.48 billion DBC tracks the DBIQ Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Index Excess Return, which “is a rules-based index composed of futures contracts on 14 of the most heavily traded and important physical commodities in the world,” according to PowerShares.