This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 19, No. 17 on September 17, 2010.
One of the main problems with commodity-based ETF’s is that they don’t necessarily track the underlying commodity very well. This is mainly due to the fact that the ETF is forced to trade the futures contracts, and there are times when it isn’t feasible for the ETF managers to roll from one futures contract to the next without making a “losing” trade that puts “drag” on the performance of the ETF vis-a-vis the spot index or commodity itself.
As trading opened on Monday, February 5th, 2018, stocks had already been falling for a few days. Then on that day there was a major decline – the largest drop in point terms in history. The Dow was down 1,175 points. The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) was down 113 points. All other major stock indices suffered similar fates. Those net changes were effective as of the 4 p.m. (Eastern time) close of the NYSE.
