ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis – Largest weekly outflows from Diversified Commodities ETPs for six months
- Largest weekly outflow from Diversified Commodities ETPs for six months (US$80 mn)
- Profit taking in Precious Metals ETPs after strong YTD performance
- Strong inflows in Equity ETPs driven by Tech (US$20mn) and Europe (US$19mn)
- Opportunistic inflows into Crude Oil (US$15mn)
Largest weekly outflow from Diversified Commodity ETPs for six months (US$80 mn). The Diversified Commodity ETPs had the largest weekly outflow since November 2016. Rising inventory levels among individual commodities such as oil, iron ore and sugar have been a drag on prices this year. There was an additional trigger last week when Moody’s downgraded China’s sovereign credit ratings one notch due to concerns over gross debt levels and slowing growth. Among major asset classes, commodities have been among the worst performers this year. Energy, soft commodities and agriculture were the worst performing sub-sectors in May, with livestock and precious metals the best. Commodity Futures Trading Commission positioning data had highlighted commodities reaching a peak bullishness sentiment end-February 2017. This bullish sentiment has since unwound considerably, remaining just above it’s long-term average balance between bull and bears.
Outflows in Gold ETP (US$ 52mn) and Silver ETP (US$26mn). After their strong outperformance this year, we saw profit-taking in both Silver and Gold ETPs . Gold prices are up 11% and Silver prices 8% year-to-date. Another catalyst for profit-taking is the upcoming June 14th Federal Reserve meeting, where the market is still placing a near certainty to a hike.
Industrial metals react to China Debt downgrade. There were US$30mn outflows from the Industrial Metals basket last week. Industrial metals were down on average -2% following China’s sovereign downgrade by Moody’s. In addition to the downgrade, consensus is expecting the upcoming May industrial production and fixed asset investment data in China to show a slowdown in growth.
Equity inflows driven by Technology (US$20mn) and Europe ETPs (US$19mn). Technology related ETPs (Cybersecurity and Robo) had their 12th straight week of inflows, marking US$91mn of inflows year-to-date, . Investor interest in Tech continues to be strong as tech indices break new post-dot-com bubble highs. Last week also saw inflows in both long and short European ETPs as investors reacted to news that there could be an earlier than expected Italian election. European economic momentum continues to look the strongest globally on survey data such as the PMIs.
Opportunistic inflows into Crude Oil (US$15 mn). Oil prices fell after the May 25th OPEC meeting as the market was expecting more aggressive production cuts. There were some opportunistic inflows on the back of the price drops.
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