The Best Oil ETF to Invest in Today

With oil prices ready to continue their rebound, investors are on the hunt for the best oil ETF to invest in now.

WTI oil prices are up 23.2% since they bottomed at $49.65 on March 17. They are still down 37% since June 23, 2014. The S&P 500 energy sector has plummeted 23.5% over the same period.

Many oil ETFs are still down more than WTI oil. The United States Oil Fund LP (NYSE Arca: USO), which saw more than $2 billion in investments last year, has fallen 48.5% since last June. The ProShares Ultra DJ-UBS Crude Oil Fund (NYSE Arca: UCO) is down 46.6% over the same period.

Investors are starting to show interest in crude oil index ETFs again as prices have been rising. The Wall Street Journal reported nearly $6 billion was poured into this type of oil ETF in the first quarter alone.

Now is a good time to bet on higher oil prices. Oil is up 7.5% this year and expected to keep climbing. But USO and UCO are not the best oil ETFs to profit from the rebound.

In fact, crude oil index ETFs have one major problem right now that many investors aren't aware of...

Why These Popular Funds Are Not the Best Oil ETFs to Buy Now

Thanks to a problem known as "contango," crude oil index ETFs miss out on profits during low oil price periods.

Contango is a situation in which futures prices are higher than the spot price of oil.

You see, many oil ETFs like USO and UCO track futures contracts instead of the spot price. When there's a gap between the price of the expiring futures contract and the new futures contract, the ETF is forced to buy contracts at the higher price. In other words, the fund is always buying high and selling low.

For instance, if a new contract is $4 higher than the expiring one, investors will encounter what is called a "negative roll yield" of $4. That's because the fund is buying high and selling low to track the oil price month to month.

Contango only happens during periods of unusually low prices and high production.

The last time this happened to the oil market was the "supercontango" of the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, oil tanker ships stockpiled millions of barrels off the coasts of major production areas like the Gulf of Mexico and England. The gap between the WTI oil spot price and futures price 12 months later was more than $23 a barrel.

These oil index funds aren't healthy investments now because any spread between the spot price and futures price can cause them to miss profits.

Instead, the best oil ETFs to invest in now focus on the midstream sector. These funds hold companies that make money from owning pipelines, storage facilities, and other infrastructure.

Here's our top pick, which has surged more than 2% over the last two weeks...