Commodity exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, were created early in the last decade to give retail investors an easy way to play hard assets such as oil and natural gas and metals in one broad investment vehicle. And the strategy has worked—in spades. A low fee structure, preferential tax treatment and strong marketing have propelled commodity ETFs to $97.8 billion in assets under management as of September 30 2010, according to industry data from BlackRock, one of the largest ETF issuers. BlackRock's data also indicate that overall ETF assets at the end of September were just under $800 billion and growing—up 13% over 2009.
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