ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis – Crude rally leads investors to take profit
- The 6% rise in crude oil over the last week has led to investors taking profits with outflows of US$53m.
- Selling long positions and buying short positions in EUR against the USD has been a continued trend.
- Precious metals saw minor inflows of US$19m after a run of outflows.
The 6% rise in crude oil over the last week has led to investors taking profits with outflows of US$53m. This year there have been substantial inflows of US$350m into crude oil ETPs as investors trade the upper and lower end of the established US$40-55 trading range. Oil has been volatile, proving very sensitive to news on inventories in the US. The recent inventory drawdown was much greater than expected providing a catalyst to the recent price appreciation. Investors are using price volatility as an opportunity to buy on weakness and sell into strength. Although US stockpiles are now below last year’s levels, the rising trend in crude production highlights a continued rise in supply. We believe this puts a limit of US$55/bbl on oil prices, particularly as marginal costs of production in the US continue to fall and OPEC struggles with compliance of its production freeze.
Precious metals saw minor inflows of US$19m after a run of outflows. Recent dovish comments from the US Federal Reserve, failure of the Obamacare repeal and the corresponding weakness of the US dollar are the likely reasons for improved appetite for precious metals. Silver flows were flat for the week but have been popular over the last month with inflows of US$75m. We believe this is due to anticipated increase in industrial demand and attractive valuations relative to gold.
Wheat has been the worst performing crop over the last month, but remains by far the best performing year to date, up 7.5%. This recent weakness has prompted inflows of US$5.8m over the week and follows US$23m of outflows over the previous month. We continue to see potential downside correction in the near term. Net futures positions in wheat recently reached a 2-year high while fundamental projections for 2017/2018 in the WASDE July report are similar to 2015/2016 levels.
We continue to see inflows into thematic equity ETPs, with US$21m this week and nearly US$700m for the year so far. Investors remain focussed on the Robotics and Cyber Security ETPs which had inflows of US$13.2m and US$6.7m respectively.
Selling long positions and buying short positions in EUR has been a continuing trend with outflows of US$20m and inflows of US$26m respectively over the last month. This has been primarily against the USD. The ECB’s strategy to drip-feed the market with subtle hints on tapering is not quite working out, having pushed speculative long trades to overcrowded positions. This is in stark contrast to the USD where FED tightening actions are not strengthening the currency, while speculative long positions remain subdued.
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ETF Securities Research team
ETF Securities (UK) Limited
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