I was wondering what you guys thought about etfs for trading commodities instead of buying/selling futures contracts.
It's better to have them than not because those ETF's can attract trading activity from people who are afraid of futures contracts.
In futures: the leverage is better, tax treatment is better, don't have to pay the fund's management fee(which is built into te share price) depending on the futures the bid/ask per dollar invested is better, in a backwardation situation tons of money can be made on rollovers as the nearby goes ballistic (copper recently) enhancement strategies with options are available. I can see that for some long term retirement accounts ETF's may be more suitable. Regards, GC