Plenty of gold and silver exchange traded funds were in focus on Thursday with miners ETFs shining particularly bright.
Of the top-15 ETFs in terms of percentage gains yesterday, nine were precious metals miners funds, a group that was topped by the PureFunds ISE Junior Silver Small Cap Miners/Explorers ETF (NYSEArca: SILJ).
Highlighting its status as an alternative to leveraged silver ETFs, SILJ surged 10.4% on triple its average daily turnover, meaning SILJ’s Thursday gain was more than double those of the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV) and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR). Impressively, SILJ also topped the double-leveraged ProShares Ultra Silver (NYSEArca: AGQ) by about 130 basis points on the day. [Silver Miners Leading Metals ETF Rally]
SILJ is not yet a household name among equity-based commodities ETFs, but the recent volume surge in the fund could be a sign more trading desks are taking note of the fund.
“SILJ for example, most portfolio managers, even those involved in the ETF managed space would have responded “I have never heard of it” or at the very least “it’s too small for me to trade in size” before the outsized move we have seen in the past couple sessions in tandem with rising Silver prices,” said Street One Financial Vice President Paul Weisbruch.
As has been seen with gold futures and miners ETFs this year, SILJ does share an intimate correlation to silver’s price action. That is to say it is not reasonable to expect SILJ to go on a tear if silver futures are falling. However, SILJ is proving that when silver rips higher, SILJ can often positively overshoot the metal’s move.
It is that positive leverage to rising silver prices that helps SILJ join a long list of small ETFs that have delivered outsized performance. [Small-ETFs With Big Returns]