Energy has long been a popular destination for all types of investors, ranging from smaller individuals to sophisticated billion dollar hedge funds. It wasn’t that long ago that the strategies for investing in energy were relatively simple and straightforward: buy ExxonMobil (XOM). But thanks in part to the ETF boom, there are now options aplenty for tapping into global energy markets. Below are 13 different strategies for investing in energy, each offering unique risk / return profiles:

1. “Plain Vanilla” Energy ETFs

The traditional form of exposure to energy is still the most popular, as there are billions of dollars invested in products that offer exposure to “Big Oil” stocks such as Exxon, Chevron (CVX), and others. Even within this category, however, the options are far from homogeneous; there are various broad-based funds in the Energy Equities ETFdb Category that deliver unique exposure through weighting methodologies, geographic focuses, and other

Gasoline is one of the most widely-known and used commodities worldwide. It is primarily utilized for fuels, but can be also used for various reasons like a solvent to dilute paints. While we refer to the liquid as gasoline here in the States, many other parts of the world know it by the term petrol, or sometimes petrogasoline. From a chemical standpoint, this low-density fuel is very volatile, not only because of its natural makeup, but also because of the numerous additives that can be mixed in. Some of these additives include lead, ethanol, and dye.

Gasoline itself was not invented, but rather, is a byproduct of the petroleum industry, namely from the production of kerosene and refining of crude oil. It was thrust into popularity with the introduction of automobiles, which had the option of using various fuel sources, but ultimately decided upon gasoline for its strong combustion properties.

By Sumit Roy

Another week of significant volatility in commodity markets led to more investor skittishness, as $2.1 billion of capital flowed out of commodity-related exchange-traded products. Total assets in such products fell by an even more significant $4.6 billion, due to capital depreciation.

Over the past two weeks, outflows in commodity ETPs have totaled $5.4 billion, while assets have declined by a stunning $19.6 billion on the back of plunging commodity prices.

Sector performance, unsurprisingly, was rather one-sided. Four of the five sectors saw net outflows, with precious metals in the lead. Outflows from ETPs related to gold, silver, platinum and palladium totaled $1.4 billion. Broad market (multicommodity), energy and industrial metals followed with $508 million, $431 million and $89 million in outflows, respectively.

Bucking the trend, however, was the agriculture sector, which saw a notable $315 in inflows. Interestingly, a single fund was responsible for much of those