United States Oil ETF Is Once Again World’s Largest Oil Fund

Thanks to steady inflows in recent weeks, United States Oil ETF (NYSEARCA: USO) is once again the biggest oil exchange-traded fund in the world in terms of total assets, topping WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil fund for the first time since the beginning of this year.

As of Monday, October 23, United States Oil ETF had total net assets of $1.876 billion, compared to $1.8 billion in assets under the management of the WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil fund, BRNT.

According to Bloomberg data, this is the first time since January this year that the assets of USO have surpassed the assets of BRNT.

United States Oil ETF has been the biggest and most closely watched oil-linked exchange-traded product on the market for years.

USO seeks to reflect the performance of the spot price of West Texas Intermediate light, sweet crude oil delivered to Cushing, Oklahoma by investing in a mix of oil futures contracts and other oil interests.

The fund saw outflows earlier this year and lost the competition to be the world’s biggest oil ETF to the WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil fund.

However, the recent flare-up in the Middle East with the Hamas-Israel war has attracted fresh inflows into USO as investors priced in a war premium into their bets on crude oil prices.

United States Oil ETF has recently seen inflows topping $200 million amid bullish market sentiment that crude oil futures prices would continue to rise.

The recent inflows of $200 million are the highest inflows into the exchange-traded fund since August 2020, per Bloomberg’s calculations.

Per Bloomberg’s most recent estimates, the ETF has seen around $400 million in inflows in the past few days as international crude oil prices rose after the Hamas attack on Israel earlier this month.    

This week, oil prices have been down as weaker economic data from Europe offset fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.  

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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