The United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (NYSE:UNG) underperformed all other non-leveraged, non-inverse exchange traded products in the U.S. today on a percentage basis, producing a -4.03% one-day return and trailing the wider markets by a total of 3.41 percentage points.
Behind The Gains
UNG closed today at $8.10 per share, down $0.34 (-4.03%). Putting this move in context, the S&P 500 index — largely considered the most popular and useful benchmark for equity performance — closed down -0.62% on the day.
UNG’s trading volume today was a total of 11,587,920 shares, which was a decrease of 6% versus its average daily trading volume of 12,376,858. Rising trading volume generally an indicator of increased demand for a particular security, and is typically associated with a specific news event or trend that draws investors into or out of specific asset classes, or sectors or subsectors within those classes.
Including any dividends as well as today’s losses, UNG has now fallen a total of -13.28% year-to-date, versus a 1.8% gain in the S&P 500 during the same timeframe.
A Look Under The Hood
United States Natural Gas Fund, LP is a Commodity-focused product issued by U.S. Commodity Funds. Its expense ratio of 0.60% makes it the #24 cheapest ETF among 119 total funds in the Commodity ETFs category.
UNG currently boasts $532.93M in assets under management (AUM), placing it #15 of 119 ETFs in its category, and #441 of 1922 total ETFs in the U.S. exchange traded universe.
The investment objective of the United States Natural Gas Fund seeks to reflect the daily changes in percentage terms of the price of natural gas delivered at the Henry Hub, Louisiana, as measured by the daily changes in the price of a specified short-term futures contract. The fund invests primarily in futures contracts for natural gas that are traded on the NYMEX, ICE Futures Exchange or other U.S. and foreign exchanges. The Benchmark Futures Contract is the futures contract on natural gas as traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange that is the near month contract to expire, except when the near month contract is within two weeks of expiration.
UNG, as you might expect, was led lower today by a decline in natural gas prices. According to Investing.com,
U.S. natural gas futures declined on Monday, starting the week off with heavy losses as forecasts showing cold weather receding in key regions in the U.S. during the next few weeks dampened demand for the heating fuel.
UNG SMART Grade
UNG currently has an ETF Daily News SMART Grade of B (Buy), and is ranked #53 of 120 funds in the Commodity ETFs category.