After gold-mining stocks took a big tumble in the past few months, NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index is changing the way it does things next month, Barrons' Brendan Conway writes. The index is staying away from small companies, those below $750 million, but grandfathering those companies above $450 million that are in the index now, and adding more on-U.S. listed stocks.

The index will also use more ADRs and GDRs. That would have some impact on Van Eck Associates Corporation [profile] Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, making it a broader fund than before, Brendan Conway writes. Conway reports the ETF has been down 4.2 percent over the last five years.

At IndexUniverse, Hung Tran interviewed Elizabeth Kashner, IndexUniverse's director of research, whom he quoted as saying, "If indexes can be retooled as funds can be, then it makes indexes less useful as yardsticks because it makes it harder for investors to understand their exposures over time."

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Edited by: Casey Quinlan


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