Commodities In Review: October 2020

August was a great month for commodity ETFs, with all but three notching positive returns. The runaway winner was the United States Natural Gas Fund LP (UNG), with an increase of 37.82%; followed distantly by the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), up 15.81%; and the iPath Series B Bloomberg Nickel Subindex Total Return ETN (JJN), up 15.27%. The three worst performers weren’t even down 1%. The iPath Series B Bloomberg Sugar Subindex Total Return ETN (SGG) fell 0.96%, while the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and the iPath Series B Bloomberg Tin Subindex Total Return ETN (JJT) fell 0.32% and 0.16%, respectively. GLD led the inflows with a gain of $602.8 million, while the Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF (PDBC) gained $224.8 million and the Invesco DB Agriculture Fund (DBA) added $186.2 million. Meanwhile, UNG lost $114.7 million, the United States Commodity Index Fund (USCI) decreased by $34.4 million and the United States Gasoline Fund LP (UGA) saw $11.3 million in outflows.

Sources: Bloomberg and FactSet. Data from 7/31/2020 to 8/31/2020. ETFs chosen to represent each sector based on the most liquid ETF in each segment of the ETF.com ETF Classification System.