A survey of commodity funds

For anyone thinking about adding some commodities to their investment portfolio in 2008, there is a growing selection from which to choose. Here are the top performers:

Links: DCR, DBA, JJC, JJG, SLV

Please don't ask me about that MacroMarkets Oil Down fund - I have no idea what's going on with it. It came out as number one, so it's in the top spot. Numbers two and five above, however, I like a lot.

Mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and exchange traded notes based on a commodity indexes are shown below. All of the remaining tables are ordered oldest first, newest last.

Links: PCRCX, DBC, GSG, GSP, DJP, RJI, GCC

The Dow Jones AIG Commodity Index, the basis for both the Pimco PCRCX fund and the iPath DJP ETF, has been the top performing commodity index so far in 2008, though it is not clear how the Pimco fund has outperformed its index by such a wide margin. Bill Gross must be up to something.

Energy funds are shown below. Again, don't ask me about the Macromarkets products. I don't think I want to know how they work.

Links: USO, DCR, UCR, DBE, DBO, UNG, RJN, JJE, GAZ, OIL, USL

Note how the "early bird gets the worm" above with the Victoria Bay USO oil ETF and the streetTRACKS GLD gold ETF below.

The streetTRACKS gold ETF beat the iShares IAU gold ETF to market by only a month or so back in late-2004/early-2005, yet GLD has 11 times the net assets and more than 33 times the trading volume.

Links: GLD, IAU, SLV, DBP, DGL, DBS, DBB, RJZ JJC, JJM, JJN

Of course in the metals, copper and silver are the stories so far in 2008. Copper?? Isn't Dr. Copper supposed to be predicting the future of the global economy? Apparently Dr. Copper doesn't read the financial papers, otherwise he (or she) would be be predicting a recession by lowering his price.

Well, actually, agricultural products are the real story so far in 2008 as shown below. All these funds are up double-digits so far except the livestock ETF. Hmmm...

Links: DBA, RJA, JJA, JJG, COW

Azuki beans? Yes, they are in Jim Rogers' commodity index along with both bean oil and bean meal.

If anyone knows of any other offerings, please send me mail. I think the above list is complete save for the very old Oppenheimer fund (QRAAX) that has some ridiculously high loads.

Full Disclosure: Long PCRCX, DBE, DBA, GLD, SLV

To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research. Or, sign up for a free trial.