What Is CORN? Teucrium Corn Fund

CORN is the Teucrium Corn Fund, launched in June 2010, one of the only US-listed ETFs offering direct exposure to the price of corn. It does not hold farmland or agriculture stocks; it holds CBOT corn futures contracts, with cash and Treasury instruments posted as collateral.

No. Storing and delivering physical grain is impractical, so CORN gains its exposure through corn futures contracts traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. The remaining assets sit in cash-equivalent collateral like government money-market funds, which is why a holding such as a Goldman Sachs government fund shows up as a large line item.

1.00% per year, or $100 annually on a $10,000 position. That is high relative to equity index ETFs, reflecting the cost of actively managing and rolling a futures portfolio. Total cost of ownership can be higher still once the roll cost of the futures themselves is included.

Contango is when longer-dated futures cost more than near-dated ones. A fund that rolls expiring contracts into pricier later ones loses a little value each time, a drag called negative roll yield. CORN tries to reduce this by laddering across three contracts (second month, third month, and the following December) rather than always holding the front month, but roll cost can still erode returns in a persistently contango market.

No, CORN has a 0.00% yield. Commodity futures produce no income, and any interest earned on the cash collateral is used to cover fund expenses rather than distributed. Total return comes only from corn price movements net of costs.

Commodity futures funds like CORN are generally designed as tactical tools rather than buy-and-hold positions, because roll costs and the lack of income can erode value over long holding periods even if spot corn prices are flat. Walnut is not an investment adviser; CORN suits a specific, usually shorter-term view on corn prices rather than a core allocation.

Weather in the US Corn Belt, USDA planting and yield reports, ethanol demand (a large share of US corn goes to ethanol), export demand from China and others, the US dollar, and input costs like fertilizer and diesel. Corn is highly seasonal and can swing sharply on a single drought or bumper-harvest forecast.

CORN trades like any stock during US market hours through brokers such as Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, and Public. Because it is structured as a commodity pool, it issues a Schedule K-1 at tax time rather than a standard 1099, which adds paperwork some investors prefer to avoid.

Yes. As a commodity-pool limited partnership, the Teucrium Corn Fund passes through gains and losses on a Schedule K-1 rather than a 1099-DIV. This can complicate tax filing and is worth understanding before buying, especially in a taxable account.

Approximately $176.6 million as of mid-2026, small compared with equity ETFs. Single-commodity funds tend to stay modest in size because they serve tactical rather than core allocations, and assets can fluctuate significantly with commodity cycles.

CORN is a single-commodity fund tracking only corn futures. DBA (Invesco DB Agriculture) is a diversified agriculture basket spanning corn, soybeans, wheat, sugar, coffee, cattle, and more. DBA smooths out the risk of any one crop; CORN gives concentrated, pure exposure to corn alone for investors with a specific view.

Agricultural commodities sometimes rise with broad inflation, so some investors hold grain funds as a partial hedge. But corn is driven far more by weather and crop cycles than by monetary inflation, so the relationship is loose and unreliable. It is a bet on corn supply and demand first, an inflation proxy only incidentally.

CORN tracks a Teucrium benchmark built from three CBOT corn futures contracts: the second-to-expire, the third-to-expire, and the December contract following that third. This three-contract structure is the fund's signature design, meant to reduce the contango drag that hurts simpler front-month commodity funds.

Yes. Single-commodity futures exposure is volatile, subject to sharp weather-driven swings, roll costs, and a high 1.00% fee, with no dividend to cushion returns. It is one of the more speculative slices of an ETF lineup and is generally sized small and held tactically rather than as a portfolio foundation.

Put a few fields side by side: the expense ratio (fees compound over decades), the index or strategy it tracks, the top holdings and how much they overlap with what you already own, the dividend yield, and the AUM, liquidity, and bid-ask spread that affect trading costs. For index funds, tracking error (how closely it follows its index) and tax efficiency matter too. CORN's figures are above; the full method is in Walnut's guide on how to compare ETFs.