SILJ

About SILJ

The Fund uses a “passive” or indexing approach to try to achieve the Fund’s investment objective. Unlike many investment companies, the Fund does not try to “beat” the Index and does not seek temporary defensive positions when markets decline or appear overvalued. The Fund generally expects to use a replication strategy. A replication strategy is an indexing strategy that involves investing in the securities of the Index in approximately the same proportions as in the Index. However, the Fund may utilize a representative sampling strategy with respect to the Index when a replication strategy might be detrimental to shareholders, such as when there are practical difficulties or substantial costs involved in compiling a portfolio of equity securities to follow the Index, in instances in which a security in the Index becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable or less liquid, or as a result of legal restrictions or limitations (such as tax diversification requirements) that apply to the Fund but not the Index. The Index tracks the performance of the equity securities (or corresponding American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) or Global Depositary Receipts (“GDRs”)) of small-capitalization companies actively engaged in silver refining, mining, or exploration (“Junior Silver Companies”). “Junior” is a term used in reference to small capitalization exploration companies. Junior Silver Companies include pure play companies that generate more than 50% of their revenue from silver mining activities and non-pure play companies that generate 50% or less of their revenue from silver mining activities. The stocks are weighted according to a modified market capitalization that is based upon the percentage of company revenues generated from silver mining activities such that, when weighting Junior Silver Companies, the market cap of a pure play company is multiplied by a factor of three and the market cap of a non-pure play company is multiplied by a factor of one. The five stocks with the highest adjusted market capitalization are assigned a weight of 13%, 11%, 9%, 7%, and 5% respectively with all remaining stocks weighted pro rata based on their relative adjusted market capitalization, subject to a cap of 4.5%. The securities of each company in the Index must also be listed on a securities exchange. The initial universe of Junior Silver Companies is determined based on proprietary research and analysis conducted by Prime Indexes, (the “Index Provider”), an independent index provider that is not affiliated with the Fund’s investment adviser. The Index Provider uses a variety of publicly available resources for such analysis, including financial statements and other reports published by issuers to determine whether a company is actively engaged as a Junior Silver Company. The Index Provider may exclude companies that meet the criteria for inclusion in the Index or include companies that do not meet such criteria if it determines that including or excluding them would be contrary to the objective of the Index (e.g., their inclusion would negatively affect the investibility of the Index, the company’s economic fortunes are predominantly driven by a business not related to that of a Junior Silver Company, the company is expected to meet the inclusion criteria in the immediate future and plays an important role in the junior silver industry). The Index has a quarterly review in March, June, September, and December of each year at which times the Index is reconstituted and rebalanced by the Index Provider. The composition of the Index and the constituent weights are determined on the two Thursdays before the second Friday of each March, June, September, and December (or the next business day if this is a non-business day) (the “Selection Day”). Component changes are made after the market close on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December (or the next business day if the third Friday is not a business day) and become effective at the market opening on the next trading day. The Index is developed and owned by the Index Provider, and the Index is calculated and maintained by Solactive AG. The Index Provider is independent of Solactive AG, the Fund, and the Fund’s investment adviser. Junior Silver Companies are then screened as of the Selection Date for investibility to determine initial inclusion (e.g., must not be listed on an exchange in a country which employs certain restrictions on foreign capital investment), a minimum market capitalization of $20 million, a maximum market capitalization of $3 billion, and an operating company structure (as opposed to a pass-through security). The Index Provider may include companies in the Index with a market capitalization within 5% of the above thresholds as of the Selection Date to account for short term fluctuations in market capitalization resulting from changes in a security’s price. The weightings of the constituents of the Index are further modified in that the cumulative weight of all constituents with an individual weight of 5% or greater may not in the aggregate account for more than 50% of the weight of the Index as of the Selection Day. Further, the cumulative weight of all components with a market capitalization of less than US $100 million may not in the aggregate account for more than 10% of the weight of the Index as of the Selection Day. As of January 10, 2023, the Index had 52 constituents.The Fund invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Index and in ADRs and GDRs based on the component securities in the Index. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its total assets in securities that are not in the Fund’s Index to the extent that the Fund’s adviser believes such investments should help the Fund’s overall portfolio track the Index. The Fund rebalances its portfolio in accordance with its Index, and, therefore, any changes to the Index’s rebalance schedule will result in corresponding changes to the Fund’s rebalance schedule. Correlation: Correlation is the extent to which the values of different types of investments move in tandem with one another in response to changing economic and market conditions. An index is a theoretical financial calculation, while the Fund is an actual investment portfolio. The performance of the Fund and the Index may vary somewhat due to transaction costs, asset valuations, foreign currency valuations, market impact, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), legal restrictions or limitations, illiquid or unavailable securities, and timing variances. The Fund’s investment adviser expects that, over time, the correlation between the Fund’s performance and that of the Index, before fees and expenses, will exceed 95%. A correlation percentage of 100% would indicate perfect correlation. If the Fund uses a replication strategy, it can be expected to have greater correlation to the Index than if it uses a representative sampling strategy. Industry Concentration: The Fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its net assets) in a particular industry or group of related industries to approximately the same extent that the Index is concentrated. As of January 10, 2023, the Index was concentrated in companies in the metals and mining industries group.