Van Eck Offers Access to Mining Companies

The asset management firm says the fund is the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the country to provide investors with concentrated access to “juniors,” – “small- and mid-cap mining companies which generally represent a dynamic subset of the global gold-mining industry as many are companies actively engaged in developing new sources of gold either through greenfields exploration or use of new geologic models to prospect for gold in overlooked or abandoned properties.” 

According to a press release, the fund seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners Index (ticker: MVGDXJ), a rules-based, modified market cap-weighted, float-adjusted index comprised of a global universe of publicly traded small- and mid-capitalization companies that generate at least 50% of their revenues from gold or silver mining. The fund carries a gross expense ratio of 0.68% and a net expense ratio of 0.60%.

As of September 30, 2009, the weighted average market capitalization of the index’s constituents was $850 million, and as of the same date, the six countries in GDXJ’s underlying index by weighting were Canada (62.6%), United States (21.8%), Australia (11.2%), South Africa (2.4%), China (1.3%), and United Kingdom (0.7%).

Van Eck Global also offers the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), which seeks to track an index that focuses on the larger companies in the global gold-mining industry.