1. Total Metals Corp (TSXV:TT, FSE: O4N)
Total Metals Corp. is focused on advancing high-grade gold projects to production.
Commodity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer investors a convenient channel to allocate assets like metals, energy, and agricultural products, avoiding the hassles of physical holding while achieving portfolio diversification. Unlike physical gold and silver, which can be stored, commodities such as crude oil, natural gas, and wheat are difficult for individuals to hold physically, making ETFs an ideal alternative.
These types of funds possess unique asset allocation value: On one hand, they exhibit low correlation with stocks and bonds, effectively diversifying portfolio risk; on the other hand, they perform prominently during inflationary cycles, as commodity prices typically rise along with increasing consumer prices. However, investors should also note that due to supply-demand dynamics, geopolitical factors, and economic cycles, the price volatility of these assets is relatively high. Here are three ETFs worth watching.
This fund tracks the excess return portion of the DBIQ Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Index Excess Return, covering 14 actively traded commodities across four major sectors: energy, precious metals, industrial metals, and agriculture. These include futures for gasoline, Brent crude oil, NY Harbor ULSD, WTI crude oil, natural gas, gold, corn, soybeans, wheat, sugar, zinc, aluminum, copper, and silver.
Its core advantage lies in the innovative mechanism of the “optimum yield strategy.” By intelligently selecting futures contracts with the most favorable price curve positioning, it effectively manages “roll yield”—specifically, when the market is in contango (where far-month contract prices are higher than near-month contracts), this strategy minimizes the erosion of returns caused by rolling operations. The fund’s expense ratio of 0.59% is quite competitive, but investors should note that it may generate relatively large capital gain distributions in December, which could lead to unexpected tax liabilities for those in taxable accounts.
Addressing the highly cyclical nature of commodity markets (where prices often experience sharp reversals after prolonged unidirectional movement), this fund incorporates a unique risk control mechanism. It tracks 12 core commodities across the agriculture, energy, and metals sectors, including corn, cotton, soybeans, sugar, wheat, light crude oil, heating oil, natural gas, RBOB gasoline, gold, copper, and silver.
Unlike most passive ETFs, COM employs a dynamic trend-following strategy. When market trends weaken, it can liquidate commodity positions and shift to holding U.S. Treasury bonds, avoiding passive holding during downtrends. This flexible long/short mechanism effectively controls drawdowns. The fund has achieved an annualized return of 10.81% over the past five years, although its expense ratio of 0.70% is slightly higher than some peers.
As the only physically backed ETF on this list, this fund directly holds gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bars and ingots, eschewing the futures contract model. The precious metal reserves are stored in London vaults and are independently audited twice a year by the International Assay Office. All metals meet the Good Delivery standards of the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM) and the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), with each bar explicitly attributed to the fund’s assets.
Beyond their use in jewelry, platinum and palladium play critical roles in industrial applications such as automotive catalytic converters, electronic components, and medical devices, giving the portfolio a unique industrial attribute. The fund does not distribute any dividends. With an expense ratio of 0.60%, it offers both cost efficiency and tax efficiency, making it a high-quality tool for allocating to precious metals.
