Agricultural Funds Surge On Midwest Flooding Crop Damages

Agriculture exchange traded funds (ETFs) shot up in trading today as a flood in the Midwest damaged the 2008 corn crop.

Corn futures rose more than 4%, the fifth straight record trading session, reports Sam Nelson for Reuters. Corn prices have risen 80% in the last year, and 17% of that has been accrued in the first 11 days of this month. Other futures are higher, too, including soybeans, which are up 3%, and wheat, which is up 5%.

Key corn-producing states, such as Illinois and Iowa, are getting flooded. It’s caused the U.S. Department of Agriculture to slash its estimate for corn yields per acre.

Agriculture ETFs that track futures for these commodities are trading higher today as a result:

• PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA): up 9.5% year-to-date; holds futures for corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar
• ELEMENTS Rogers International Commodity Agriculture ETN (RJA): up 4.3% year-to-date; seeks to replicate an index of agricultural commodity futures contracts, including soybeans, corn, oats, rice and wheat.
• E-TRACS UBS Bloomberg CMCI Agriculture Index ETN (UAG): up 3.3% since April 4 inception; seeks to replicate an index that represents the value of a range of
  agricultural commodity futures contracts, among them wheat, corn and
  soybeans.

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