Whenever we need a pick me up or something to brighten our day, the underperformance of commodity ETF’s usually does the trick. Surprisingly, the ETF’s have held in there remarkably well so far this year against a simple strategy of buy and hold the December futures contract and roll it annually (down just 26 basis points on average).

The real story, however, is the underperformance of either long only strategy (only make money when the commodities go up) versus the Ag Trader Index, which can make money on the long AND short side.

(Disclaimer: Past performance is not necessarily indicative to future results.)