BNO vs OILK

BNOCUnited States Brent Oil Fund LP

OILKAProShares K-1 Free Crude Oil ETF

In short

BNO Most US oil funds follow WTI. BNO follows Brent, the barrel the rest of the world prices off, through short-term Brent futures. Running since 2010, it is a plain wrapper on that specific price.

OILK The only crude oil ETF that spares you a Schedule K-1. OILK sends a 1099 instead, and its index spreads WTI futures across three roll schedules rather than camping in the front month. All-in cost: 0.70%.

Stated mandate

BNO BNO seeks to track daily percentage changes in Brent crude oil’s spot price through a specified short-term Brent crude oil futures contract, plus collateral interest and less expenses.

OILK The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Bloomberg Commodity Balanced WTI Crude Oil IndexSM.

Why people hold it

• BNO Brent, not WTI. It targets daily percentage changes in Brent crude through a specified short-term Brent futures contract, plus collateral interest, less expenses.
• Futures exposure with no oil-company stocks in the middle, so refinery margins and drilling budgets do not sit between you and the barrel price.
• Trading since 2010, a few hundred million dollars in size and actively traded: not a thin, brand-new wrapper on a niche benchmark.

• OILK At 0.70%, the cheapest of the headline oil-futures funds: USO charges 0.86%, USL 1.01%, DBO 0.81%, none of them waiver-assisted.
• A 1940 Act fund that holds its futures through a Cayman subsidiary capped at 25% of assets each quarter-end, so tax time brings a 1099, not a partnership K-1.proshares.comproshares.com 2
• Its index splits WTI exposure evenly across a monthly roll, a June annual roll and a December annual roll, resetting each March and September, diluting front-month roll costs.bbhub.io
• Trading since 2016 and one of the stronger implementations in a small energy-futures peer group.

Worth knowing

• BNO The 1.15% expense ratio is commodity-pool pricing. WTI-based peers OILK (0.69%) and DBO (0.81%) charge less, though they track a different barrel.
• A limited partnership commodity pool, so tax paperwork runs through partnership reporting rather than the 1099 most ETFs send. Peer OILK exists as the K-1 free route.
• The stated objective is daily, using one short-term contract that gets rolled forward. Over longer holds, results can separate from spot Brent as the futures curve shifts.

• OILK Tracks a futures index, not spot WTI. ProShares says plainly it should be expected to perform very differently from the spot price of WTI crude.proshares.com
• One commodity, one curve: the portfolio is a few WTI futures positions plus cash-like collateral, so it moves with oil and nothing else.proshares.com
• Income, if any, is paid monthly and comes largely from collateral yield, so the amount moves around rather than acting like a fixed coupon.proshares.com

Full BNO profile⁠

Full OILK profile⁠