TraderWise

The official-sounding but totally private United States Commodity Funds has launched another ETF based on natural gas prices.  United States 12 Month Natural Gas Fund (UNL) started trading Wednesday (11/18/09).  It joins the firm’s previous offering, United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) in an attempt to offer small investors an easy way to participate in the natural gas market.

The new fund is a response to certain structural problems of UNG that resulted in dramatic underperformance relative to its benchmark, particularly in the last few months.  This chart of UNG vs

With close to a third of the year already gone by, it is time to take a look at the better performing commodity ETF’s so far in 2010 and while I usually only took the largest commodity ETF’s, I took all those that have existed since the start of the year for this report. You will see that the number one position (by far) is held by JJN, a one time nickel ETF. Who said we needed to hold leveraged ETF’s to compete in the best results category?

The Securities & Exchange Commission announced last week it is conducting a “review” of ETFs and mutual funds that make heavy use of derivatives in their portfolios.  Pending the review, applications for new issues of such funds have been suspended.  Existing funds may continue to operate normally.

This move is not directly related to last year’s decision by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enforce position limits on ETFs that use regulated futures contracts.  You may recall that turmoil in commodity-related ETFs followed the CFTC action.

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The price of oil rose 15.7% yesterday, so why didn’t the related exchange traded fund (ETF) shoot up accordingly?
John Hyland, chief investment officer at the U.S. Commodity Fund, the firm behind the United States Oil Fund (USO), says that some commodity funds that deal in futures contracts actually roll to the second month before the [...]

The United States Commodity Index Fund (USCI) began trading last Tuesday (8/10/10).  The fund’s objective is to match the SummerHaven Dynamic Commodity Index Total Return, less expenses.

With offshore oil drilling in the headlines – and not in a good way – now might seem like a curious time to launch another crude oil product.  Yet the world needs oil, regardless how much of it spills into the sea.  Today (6/2/10) marked the launch of United States Brent Oil Fund (BNO) for those who want to speculate on world oil prices.
BNO comes from United States Commodity Funds, a pioneer in the commodity ETF niche.  The firm now offers eight energy-related funds covering crude oil (BNO, USO and USL), inverse crude oil (DNO), natural gas (UNG and UNL), he

On July 7, 2009, I wrote the following on the United States Natural Gas Fund ETF (UNG).
Bloomberg reported that UNG closed Friday with a 20% premium. (Reminds me of those good old closed end funds).
There is a good article about UNG on Seeking Alpha.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a plan that would see limits placed on those speculating in energy futures including oil, natural gas, and heating fuels. The proposal would allow exemptions for commodity-dependent business such as airlines and transit companies that use futures contracts to hedge costs.

Bloomberg

I was asked a few times for an update of the commodity ETF’s to see which ones are doing best this year, as you can see, Agriculture (AGA) and Nickel (JJN) are the top ones so far, without further wait, here is the list: