FXC vs UUP

FXCCInvesco CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust

UUPCInvesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund

In short

FXC The plain-vanilla loonie trade: FXC holds actual Canadian dollars in a London bank account, no futures, no swaps, and has done it that way since 2006. A foreign-currency account you can buy in a brokerage window.

UUP One ticker, one job: be long the dollar. Since 2007 UUP has used ICE Dollar Index futures to track the greenback against six major currencies, putting a macro trade that normally needs a futures account inside a brokerage account.

Stated mandate

FXC The Trust seeks to reflect the U.S.-dollar price of the Canadian Dollar, plus any accrued interest and after Trust expenses. It is intended to provide a direct, cost-effective way to obtain investment exposure similar to holding Canadian Dollars.

UUP The Fund seeks to track positive or negative changes in the Deutsche Bank Long USD Currency Portfolio Index—Excess Return over time. It primarily uses long positions in ICE U.S. Dollar Index futures contracts, while holding Treasury and cash-management instruments for related purposes.

Why people hold it

• FXC Physically backed: real Canadian dollars sit in a JPMorgan Chase London deposit account, no derivatives involved, with the trust's holdings posted every business day.sec.gov
• Trading since 2006 and built for one job: exposure similar to holding Canadian dollars, without opening a separate currency account.
• The cash can earn interest. It accrues daily on the trust's primary deposit account, and the trust distributes monthly.sec.gov
• Fee sits at 0.40% a year, even with the median single-currency fund. Nobody in this corner is undercutting anybody.

• UUP The mechanism is pure: long ICE U.S. Dollar Index futures, so the fund moves with the dollar against the euro, yen, pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc.invesco.com
• Launched in 2007, it has run through dollar booms and slumps, making it one of the longest-lived currency funds on the tape.
• Tradability is its strongest suit: an actively traded name where getting in and out rarely means wrestling the spread.
• Futures carry the currency exposure while Treasury and cash-management instruments sit behind them as collateral.

Worth knowing

• FXC Thinly traded, so what you pay to get in and out can matter more than the 0.40% fee.
• The depository sets the interest rate and can move it to zero or below zero, which would shrink or halt what flows through to shareholders.sec.gov
• One currency, no cushion: the whole ride is the Canadian dollar against the US dollar, and the money sits in deposit accounts at a single bank.sec.gov

• UUP 0.78% a year is a real hurdle, and well above what plain broad-market index trackers in the same cohort charge.
• It is a commodity pool built on futures, not a standard stock fund, so tax forms and reporting work differently.
• Currency moves are the entire story here: no earnings, no dividend stream, and distributions are occasional rather than regular.

Full FXC profile⁠

Full UUP profile⁠