John Hood PowerShare DB Agriculture E.T.F. DBA-N COMMENT Dec 31, 2012

Are futures ETF’s suitable for RRSP holding? This one is not like an agricultural ETF that has a seed companies, etc. but this is straight futures. Anything this speculative doesn’t really belong in an RRSP. You are truly speculating with this one. Because of the resets on these futures based ETF’s, they don’t quite carry out what you think is going to happen. Very expensive from the point of MER, and the tracking error is extremely high. If you want to be in a futures market, do it directly, not through an ETF.

Appropriate to hold in an RRSP? He generally likes agricultural ETF’s, and this would be appropriate for an RRSP with the caveat that it should be in some reasonable portion such as 10% or 15%. (See Top Picks.)

A volatile chart given its volatile holdings of cocoa, sugar, soy beans, etc. and a big position in short-term US treasuries. Agriculture is seasonally strong now. Long-term, the human population keeps growing, which is a tailwind and shift to healthier diets and ESG investing. Buy this, then sell as a trade.