Commodity ETF Flows Show Investors Bracing for a Trade War
- Trading spikes for soybean fund as tariffs loom on exports
- Copper fund sees outflows; gold gains in safe-haven bid
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The U.S.-China trade war’s about to see its first shots fired, and investors in commodity exchange-traded funds spent the last month getting ready.
The group pulled the most money since February from an ETF that tracks copper, as investors grew concerned tariffs will sink the price of the industrial metal. Trading in the main U.S. ETF for soybeans spiked to triple the 10-year average as the crop’s prices tumbled. And haven seekers piled into a precious-metals fund at a rate not seen since 2016.