Contango-killing commodities ETFs are all the rage these days, and it’s worth getting under the hood of some of them to take measure of their differences.
Contango occurs in futures markets when contract prices ratchet upward over time, meaning the front month is the cheapest, and fund managers have to pay up to maintain exposure each time they prepare for a given contract to expire.
Contango is pretty much of a nightmare and, notwithstanding a hard-to-believe recent survey saying a large majority of advisors aren’t interested in any more commodities funds, commodities investors would be wise to get their heads around it.
Consider for a moment that while spot crude prices have risen almost 40 percent in the past five years, the United States Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO) has fallen by more than 40 percent. It’s no wonder USO’s sort of become the poster child for the pernicious effects of contango.
While USO, amazingly, remains a $1.2 billion fund, the ETF industry has fortunately moved well beyond front-month exposure strategies such as USO uses. Trying to limit contango, or profit from its opposite, backwardation—when front-month futures contracts are the priciest—is a big focus these days.
I’ve heard John Hyland, chief investment officer of United States Commodity Funds, the company behind USO, refer to these ETFs as third-generation commodity funds.
First-generation funds, like USO, own only front-month contracts. The second generation consists of multiple contracts of the same commodity, like the United State 12 Month Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USL), which maintains rolling exposure to 12 months of futures contracts.
The third-generation funds, with multiple commodities and various contango-killing exposure strategies, haven’t been around for long, but it may be worth taking a look at performance to see how well they do.
The largest fund in the space for diversified third-generation commodity funds is the PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (NYSEArca: DBC), with $6.08 billion in assets under management. DBC has significantly outperformed its competitors, with a return over the last six months of 11.84 percent.
|
AUM($m) |
1 Month |
3 Month |
6 Month |
|
| DBC |
6084.67 |
1.52% |
3.47% |
11.84% |
| USCI |
484.92 |
0.48% |
-0.71% |
7.04% |
| UCI |
142.72 |
1.91% |
2.21% |
7.32% |
DBC claims to invest in the 14 most important commodities based on world production and supply. The fund rolls into contracts with the implied roll yield that gives the lowest contango or the highest backwardation—excluding contracts more than 13 months away from expiration.
The UBC E-TRACS CMCI Total Return ETN (NYSEArca: UCI) is similar in that it tries to limit contango by doing more than investing in front-month contracts. The fund tracks 26 commodities and invests in five constant maturities from three months up to three years. The fund takes a long-term diversified approach to limiting contango.
The newest arrival in the space is the United States Commodity Index Fund (NYSEArca: USCI), which goes the extra step of trying to limit contango by changing the commodities it invests in, while also choosing the best contract.
