Introducing an Alternative to a $7 Billion Gold Mining Fund
This fund replicates, as closely as possible, the MVISA Global Junior Gold Miners Index, and 80 of the fund is assets are in securities that comprise the index. One notable difference between GDXJ from its big brother is that GDXJ invests in small- and medium-cap firms (hence the term junior) that generally fall below the market-cap cutoff for GDX.
Put another way, GDXJ invests in companies that are deemed to have too small a market cap for GDX. This exposes the fund to more risk than GDX due to the higher volatility of these small firms.
The top 10 largest holdings make up 44 of GDXJ is total investments. While this is less than the 57 of GDX is top 10 holdings, in another sense GDXJ is not as diversified because 71.25 of its investments are in Canada, and another 19 are split between the United States and Australia.
As always, I am happy to answer any of your questions about ETFs, so do not hesitate to send me an e-mail. You just may see your question answered in a future ETF Talk.