US commodity funds recover every dollar lost in May rout -Lipper

July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. exchange-traded commodity products and mutual funds in June recovered virtually every dollar that flowed out in May's market rout, data from funds tracker Lipper showed on Thursday, illustrating the strength of the market turnaround.

A Lipper table tracking more than 230 U.S.-regulated commodity products and funds showed a net inflow of $1.65 billion in aggregate for June, versus May's net outflow of the same amount -- give or take a few pennies.

"It's pretty rare for us to see dollar for dollar in recovery, given the commodities complex's volatility, and this is probably the first time it's happened," said Matthew Lemieux, a research analyst who helps compile data for Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company.

"You can put it down to the strength of the commodities rebound you've seen since May, although the money did not flow uniformly back to every sector it came out of."

Precious metals funds dominated the action in both May and June -- first with a net outflow of $659 million and later with a net inflow $954 million.

But general commodities funds that saw $557 million in net outflows in May only got back $88 million last month, the Lipper data showed.

The slack was mostly taken up by energy funds, which accounted for net inflows of $493 million in June -- more than double May's outflows of $222 million.

The largest inflow for June was in SPDR Gold Shares, the world's biggest exchange-traded fund in gold. The ETF attracted $490 million.

The PIMCO Commodity Real Return Strategy Portfolio, a mutual fund, had the second biggest draw with $279 million.

The Lipper data also showed net assets in commodity products and funds standing at nearly $156.5 billion at the close of June, up from almost $151 billion at the end of May.

WILD COMMODITY MARKET SWINGS

Commodity prices experienced some of their wildest swings for a quarter in the three months to June, scaring many investors away and into the relative safety of U.S. Treasuries and the dollar.

After comparatively mild moves in April, prices plunged in May and continued a broad downtrend until a violent snap back on the last trading day of June.

The 1 percent drop on the benchmark Thomson Reuters-Jefferies commodities index in April -- followed by an 11 percent slump and 4 percent gain in subsequent months -- tripped up some of the biggest speculators in the sector, including hedge funds which posted sharp losses.

The spot price of gold, the leading precious metal, jumped 2.5 percent in June after falling 6 percent in May.

In oil, which leads the energy sector, the benchmark Brent crude in London trimmed its June loss to just 4 percent after rallying 7 percent just on the last trading day of the month. In May, the market lost nearly 15 percent.

The Lipper data does not include fund holdings of over-the-counter indexes or direct investment in futures or physical commodities, or hedge funds.

Lipper's historical data also includes only funds currently in operation. The products and funds it tracks invest in physical commodities or derivatives and not in corporate securities. (Reporting By Barani Krishnan; editing by Jim Marshall)