ETF Showdown: More Than Just MOO

A lot of things are up for debate in the ETF world. One that is not is the dominance of the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE: MOO). This is oldest and largest ETF play on the rise of the farm that uses equities, not futures. Now well past its fourth birthday, the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF has almost $5.9 billion in assets under management, solidifying its first-to-market advantage among equity-based ag ETFs.

Give MOO's dominance, it's understandable the PowerShares Global Agriculture ETF (Nasdaq: PAGG) and the PowerShares Global Agriculture Equity ETF (NYSE: CRBA) go unnoticed. Let's change that, at least for today, in this week's ETF Showdown.

PAGG is the older of these two funds, having debuted in September 2008. CRBA followed in October 2009. With an expense ratio of 0.65%, the Jefferies fund is home to 35 stocks. PAGG has an expense ratio of 0.75%, but is home to 47% stocks. MOO is cheaper than both at 0.56%.

There are differences among each ETF's weightings regarding their top-10 holdings, but you'll find Potash (NYSE: POT), Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM), Monsanto (NYSE: MON) and Agrium (NYSE: AGU) among both ETFs' largest holdings.

Deere (NYSE: DE) is a top-10 holding in CRBA. It is not even held in PAGG. Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) is a top holding in PAGG, but is just the 15th-largest holding in CRBA. Both funds offer more international exposure than might meet the eye. CRBA offers about 72% global exposure spread across nine developed and emerging markets. PAGG's ex-U.S. exposure is higher at almost 76%, but that's also spread across nine countries.

We're not knocking CRBA, nor are we saying it's going to happen, but the ETF's combination of light volume and just $9.2 million in assets under management could mean the fund doesn't survive much longer.

On the other hand, PAGG's volume is decent at 30,500 shares per day on average and the ETF is home to a healthy (and surprising) $115 million in AUM.

In the past 30 and 90 days, CRBA has outperformed PAGG. Year-to-date, PAGG is the winner. Over the past two years, the two are tied. Then again, over all those time horizons, MOO has been the winner and that means the winner of this week's ETF Showdown is an ETF that wasn't even a contestant.

Bull case: PAGG is definitely going to survive and it's combination of more obscure international names and potential takeover targets gives the ETF some utility compared to MOO. All three ETFs mentioned here will need agriculture commodities demand and prices to soar in the coming years. That is the one fundamental factor every agribusiness ETF shares in common.

Bear case: High-beta ETFs remain in the doldrums. China considerably reduces imports of agricultural commodities.