Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to the Morningstar Series, Ask the Expert. I am Emma Wall and I am here today with Kenneth Lamont, Passive Funds Analyst with Morningstar.
Hello, Kenneth.
Kenneth Lamont: Hello, Emma.
Wall: So, we heard recently at the Morningstar Investment Conference, from our colleague, who is telling us about the opportunities with the agriculture sector because of changing diets across the world. Now, he was talking about equity opportunities and there are number of actively managed funds in this sector such as one from Barings and JPMorgan that give investors exposure to this theme through equities that are related to agriculture.
But if you want the underlying commodities, you really do have to go to passive funds, don't you? So how do ETFs offer investors exposure to commodities?
Lamont: As you mentioned, there are logistical problems with trading directly in the underlying commodity. The fund itself can't very well store a thousand tons of grain and trade this on a day-to-day basis. So in order to gain the underlying exposure, the fund trades in the highly liquid futures market and they roll these to maintain exposure through time.
Wall: If an investor has decided that they think that this is a great growth opportunity for them, what is the most popular or the best ETF for them?
Lamont: Well, currently the most popular is the ETF Securities Agriculture ETC (AIGA) product, with a total holding cost of 99 basis points, which still comes well under many of the item managed alternatives.
Wall: What does it hold there? When you say agriculture, what are you really getting exposure to?
Lamont: Well, it's a broad basket of different underlying commodities, so this maybe soybeans or this maybe corn.
Wall: What else is there out there, because that's just one ETF?
Lamont: Well another very interesting alternative is the RBS RICI Agriculture ETC (MRAI), which is – has a slightly more complex exposure.
Wall: What's the cost of that and what are you getting exposure to, compared to other one with that ETF?
Lamont: The cost is 85 basis points and it gives us slightly different – it gives us similar broad basket exposure, however it protects investors against movements in the futures market.
Wall: Of course, we've talked there about getting exposure to the underlying commodity to these soft coms as they are known. But you can take a passive approach to what many active managers are doing and that looking at equities related to these agricultural commodities and investing in them?
Lamont: Absolutely, the most popular of these is the iShares Agribusiness ETF (ISAG), which charges 55 basis points. It gives you a cap-weighted exposure to around the 70 largest equities or businesses involved in the agricultural business globally.
Wall: And this could be anything from the company that harvests to the company that packages, anything and everything that comes out of the ground?
Lamont: Absolutely, many companies span the full chain of production.
Wall: Kenneth, thank you very much.
Lamont: Thank you, Emma.
Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.