2010 Stock Picks: Best Oil ETF’s
We are not even a month into 2010 and already looking at what has and has not been working so far in 2010. We have been asked about oil stocks and ETF’s and at the start of the year we did a brief intro into the best alternatives. Then, earlier this week we looked into the best performing oil stocks so far in 2010. I received a few emails from readers who wanted the same information for oil ETF’s. Here it is! First off, to kick things off, here are the main oil related ETF’s as well as their YTD (year to date) returns, price, if they are leveraged or not and finally their expense ratio.
Ticker Name YTD RETURN PX_LAST LEVERAGED? EXPENSE_RATIO
SCO PROSHRE U/S DJ-AIG CRUDE OIL 16.85 15.91 Y 0.95
DTO POWERSHARES DB OIL 2X SHORT 15.889 77.26 Y 0.75
DNO UNITED STATES SHORT OIL FUND 8.223 47.4 Y 0.96
DUG PROSHARES ULTRASHORT OIL & G 3.14 13.44 Y 0.95
OIH OIL SERVICES HOLDRS TRUST 3.003 119.74 N 0
DDG PROSHARES SHORT OIL & GAS 2.176 52.83 Y 0.95
XES SPDR OIL & GAS EQUIP & SERV 2.072 28.52 N 0.35
IEZ ISHARES DJ US OIL EQUIP & SV 1.836 42.88 N 0.47
XOP SPDR S&P OIL & GAS EXPLORATI -0.874 40.44 N 0.35
PXJ POWERSHARES DYN OIL & GAS SV -0.943 16.44 N 0.61
IEO ISHARES DJ US OIL & GAS EXPL -1.519 52.84 N 0.48
DIG PROSHARES ULTRA OIL & GAS -4.46 32.28 Y 0.95
USL UNITED STATES 12 MONTH OIL -7.464 37.44 N 0.6
DBO POWERSHARES DB OIL FUND -7.827 25.42 N 0.75
OLO POWERSHARES DB CRUDE OIL LNG -7.88 12.4 N 0.75
USO UNITED STATES OIL FUND LP -8.147 36.16 N 0.45
OIL IPATH GOLDMAN SACHS CRUDE -8.192 23.8 N 0.75
UHN UNITED STATES HEATING OIL LP -9.634 25.03 N 0.69
UCO PROSHRE ULT DJ-AIG CRUDE OIL -15.852 10.7 Y 0.95
As with most such graphs, it is not a surprise to have leveraged ETF’s with the top returns. Now if I had done this table just a few days ago, I think the results would have been very different but the truth is that Crude Oil has taken quite a hit in the past week (as have many other commodities and assets) which has meant that the top picks so far have been those that return the inverse of crude oil.
Take a look at SCO from Pro-Shares which returns -200% of the return of crude oil.
Personally, I would be very surprised to see this trend continue but I guess everything is possible given the uncertainty in the world. What are your top picks among this list???
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I’m receiving these iShares...
USO and OIL is quite popular. I would trade on those products. Expense ratio is a bit high though.
Hey! Great post, but I am not buying Oil ETFs. It’s just too volatile for me.
We only hear about new ETFs. I was thinking about recent ETF closings. What do we do in that case? Should we be careful by only buying ETFs with good volume?
@Frank – Yes, it’s a lot more difficult to offer low fees on commodity ETF’s given all the expenses related to trading them (when they are futures based)
@Zavi – Yes, I would recommend staying in the higher volume ETF’s. What happens when an ETF closes is a very good question and I could research this for a new post, I would think that assets would be liquidated and investors would receive the NAV, but will get back to you, thanks!