A Garden State fund firm's first ETF recently hit a big milestoneup.

Last week, the team at ETF Managers Group, based in Summit, New Jersey, released word that the ETFMG Junior Silver Miners ETF (SILJ ETF) recently surpassed $1B in AUM

Stephen Gardner, director of ETF sales at ETFMG, tells MFWire, "This fund has been operational since November of 2012, and it was the first ETF we launched."

Sam Masucci, CEO and founder of ETFMG, states, "We are very proud to celebrate this milestone for SILJ, our first thematic ETF brought to market back in 2012. SILJ's outstanding asset growth is due in large part to its unique position in the market, capturing an underrepresented growth opportunity and answering investor demand for direct access to the small cap silver commodity sector."

Small-cap silver mining companies are the bread and butter of this particular fund, Gardner says, and the majority are based in Mexico and Canada. "This is a 'rising tide lifts all boats' type of exposure within client portfolios."

"We work with Prime Indexes," he adds, "who manage the index for the fund, and do all of the due diligence on the whole landscape of public equities which might meet the criteria for inclusion, or for removal from the fund based on liquidity, market cap, or the percentage of their business generated from silver production."

"They do a lot of the legwork as it pertains to the underlying analysis, and on the ETF side, we work with a team of traders that manage the portfolio to properly replicate the index that's put together."

Gardner says that the ETFMG team also launched a U.S. version of their global cannabis ETF, MJ, two weeks ago. He says the decision to launch an American version was made so investors can choose between the U.S. cannabis market specifically, and the world market, which includes Canada and the United Kingdom.

Gardner notes that the silver market is generally more volatile than the gold market, as silver is more thinly traded.

"On the sales side, which is my side," he adds, "we speak with advisors on a daily basis, trying to point out the benefits of the silver market and how it might be able to fit into some of their client portfolios."

"Our big focus," he concludes, "has always been looking for areas of the market that are not only underexposed, but where we see a lot of structural growth opportunities." 

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