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Virginia Tech

How Well Do Commodity Based ETFs Track Underlying Assets?

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Exchange Traded Funds are growing in popularity and volume, however academic literature related to their performance is limited. This study analyzes how well the CORN, WEAT, SOYB, USO, and UGA commodity ETFs track their respective futures assets during the period of January 2012 to October 2017. Tracking error in this study is evaluated through 4 approaches to measure error, bias, systematic risk, and error magnitude. Additionally, a mispricing analysis is conducted as an alternative form of error measurement Results indicate that tracking error is small on average, however CORN shows average excess returns significantly smaller than zero. The CORN ETF is returning a smaller positive value compared to the asset basket when asset basket returns are greater than zero and a larger negative value compared to the asset basket when asset basket returns are less than zero. The CORN, WEAT, USO, and UGA ETFs are found to move less aggressively than the respective asset baskets they track. While errors were small on average, large tracking errors were present across ETFs. The size of errors were found to be impacted by large price moves, as well as seasonality on a monthly and yearly level. USDA reports impacted the size of errors for CORN, WEAT and SOYB while EIA reports had no impact on error size. The mispricing analysis concluded that CORN and SOYB trade at a discount to Net Asset Value on average while WEAT trades at a premium.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Agricultural and Applied Economics
Department dc:contributor.department
Agricultural and Applied Economics
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2018

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Neff, Tyler Wesley
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Isengildina-Massa, Olga
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Spicer, Cara Anne
  • Ramsey, A. Ford

Subjects

dc:subject × 9

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:15487
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/83498

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Neff, Tyler Wesley. How Well Do Commodity Based ETFs Track Underlying Assets?. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83498