We spoke about the Gold Miners just yesterday, and that segment is again getting punished in the early going today. We see GDX (Market Vectors Gold Miners down again today and flirting with its late May lows once again.
The fund has actually attracted net inflows of about $50 million in the past couple sessions on this weakness, which is really not surprising given the types of investors that typically buy GDX for
portfolios. We also pointed out the recent inflows into NUGT (Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X, Expense Ratio 0.95%) to the tune of more than $90 million in the past couple sessions.
Today let us speak a bit about the Silver Miners, which similarly, have been under extreme price pressure lately with the bloodbath that continues to happen in Precious Metals, particularly Silver. Three products stand out that we typically look to in this space, and now might be an interesting time for those that have sat on the sidelines in this segment to take a look.
SIL (Global X Miners, Expense Ratio 0.65%) is the largest ETF in terms of asset size here, with about $206 million, and it debuted back in 2010. However, we have also seen upticks in interest in two newer products to market, specifically SLVP (iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners, Expense Ratio 0.39%) and SILJ (PureFunds ISE Junior Silver Miners, Expense Ratio 0.69%) which have $12 million and about $7.3 million in assets under management respectively.
No doubt these are low totals, but then again, the niche of Silver Miners is not exactly a cornerstone of every investment portfolio, but more of a strategic segment that some whom know the space of Precious Metals and
commodities in general may like to trade. These funds tend to have an international tilt to them, which should be noted.
SIL for example has >62% of its weighting in Canadian listed companies, >19% in the U.K., and 4% in Mexico, with >13% residing in U.S. companies. Similarly, SLVP has >52% in Canada, >13.8% in the U.K., as well as smaller positions in Mexico, Peru, and Hong Kong based Miners.