In the Spotlight--Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO)

Let's start with the fair disclosure. I own this ETF, I bought it recently and it is higher than my purchase price. I am not promoting or recommending this ETF. The purpose of this article is to bring the ETF into your awareness.

The Agribusiness ETF seeks to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return performance of the DAXglobal® Agribusiness Index. The Index provides targeted exposure to companies worldwide that are engaged in the agriculture business. As such, the Fund is subject to the risks of investing in this sector.

It seems to me that a diversified investment in agri-business makes sense at this point in the cycle.

MOO traded as high as 66.20 and as low as $20.98 in the last 52 weeks. So like most commodity based investments it has been hammered. MOO closed at $29.24 yesterday.

The Index comprises a basket of the securities of 37 companies from around the world that are engaged in various sectors of the agribusiness industry including agriproduct operations, agricultural chemicals, livestock operations, agricultural equipment and ethanol/biodiesel. These sectors represent 27.7%, 44.5%, 4.8%, 20.3% and 2.7% of the Index as of December 31, 2007. The Index, launched on July 16, 2007, includes many companies of global prominence including Potash Corp., Deere Co., Komatsu Ltd. and Monsanto Co., (representing 8.5%, 7.9%, 4.4% and 7.9% of the Index as of December 31, 2007).

The Index is intended to give investors an efficient way to track
the performance of equity securities of selected companies engaged in
the agriculture business that are traded on leading global exchanges.

It is calculated using a modified market capitalization weighting
methodology. The Index is weighted based on the market capitalization
of each of the component securities, modified to conform to various
asset diversification requirements, which are applied in conjunction
with the scheduled quarterly adjustments to the Index. The value of
the Index is disseminated every 15 seconds between the hours of
approximately 9:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. Eastern Time. The Index is a
total return index.

You can get a nice snapshot of the fund here Snapshot: Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF