They could have gotten together and bought an island or maybe even 12,000 copies of that Wu-Tang album.
But instead a wide-range of investors collectively spent about $24 billion over the past 18 months trying–and failing–to call a bottom in oil. Never in the history of exchange-traded funds has one particular category drawn so much money from investors trying to play a rebound. Of course not all of this money is gone (yet), although certainly a lot of it has evaporated along with the price of crude.
During that time, investors plowed $12 billion into ETFs that track oil stocks while plowing another $12 billion into ETFs that track oil futures. The table below shows the two most popular ETFs in each category–but more importantly it shows that this trade was popular with almost every kind of investor from the most professional of traders including hedge funds, as well as 'mom and pop' retail investors.
The SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF (XLE), which tracks oil-related stocks such as Exxon Mobile Corp., Chevron Corp. and Shlumberger Ltd. This ETF is popular with asset managers and traders alike thanks to its oceanic liquidity and its diversification. The Vanguard Energy ETF (VDE) does the same thing but is used almost exclusively by advisors and retail investors. (Yes, even grandma thought oil would come back).
On the other side of the tracks you have the United States Oil Fund (USO), which holds near month NYMEX futures on WTI crude oil. The trader and hedge fund crowd prefers USO because it is the most sensitive ETF to short-term pops in spot oil. It is also very liquid and offers the convenience of rolling the futures for you, albeit suffers from severe roll costs if held over the longer-term.
Then there is the VelocityShares 3x Long Crude ETN (UWTI), which took in more money than any other leveraged ETF during this time–all while losing 98 percent of its value. Although in all fairness, it did have a few sweet pops where it returned over 15 percent in a day. Only the most hard-core traders use this one as it comes with the rare triple whammy: leverage, roll costs and credit risk. (If ETFs got movie ratings, UWTI would be NC-17).
No matter which path they chose, the trade has been a disaster.
Although admittedly if an investor timed a short term trade absolutely perfectly they may have made some money.
Bottom-calling in ETFs is nothing new, but spending this much money on it certainly is.
In 2013, investors went wild trying–and also failing–to call a bottom in gold miners. The difference here is they ‘only’ spent $3 billion mining the bottom in gold, versus the $24 billion spent diving for the nadir in oil. The Market Vectors Gold miner ETF (GDX) took in almost all of that cash and has lost 46 percent since. Then in 2014, investors spent $1 billion trying to play a rebound in Russia. The Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) was the major recipient of that cash and has lost 45 percent since then, albeit with some nice bounces in between.
In all of these cases, we witnessed a rare phenomenon that only exists in the most extreme bottom-calling scenarios. It is where the price of the ETF hits an all-time low, while the shares outstanding hit an all time high. That is exactly what is happening right now with USO as shown in the chart below. That is a wide, scary mouth and it is gobbling up investor cash.
It means investors are losing their shirts.
And in the case of energy ETFs it’s a whole lotta shirts–from bespoke button-downs to typical tees–from whole range of investors.
To contact the author of this story: Eric Balchunas inSkillman at [email protected]
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