Replies to post #3766 on Great Basin Gold Ltd. (fka GBGLF)

[Damnsammit]

Hmmm... I kind of get it but still not really. The NAV is the prime driver in an ETF, right?

So how does ~40M shares of a company trading at 0.015 ($600k) have much of an affect on an ETF that has $7.1B in total net assets (GDX)? That only makes up 0.0085% of the total assets, so why would they be inclined to sell GBGLF at a loss?

I guess I need to read up more on ETFs because initially I didn't think they were as confusing as this.

Sorry to keep asking questions, but it's a slow day at work and I am trying to expand my knowledge. Been browsing through investopedia to try and learn more about ETFs, but am still coming up with more questions than answers.

[finbar99]

I just went back and spent the extra 5 minutes to pull some historical snapshots of Van Ecks holdings. Using the annual and semiannual reports on their website, plus an SEC filing in November of '12, here are the numbers

12/31/11

GDX 21,484,506
GDXJ 23,104,352


6/30/12

GDX 25,277,991
GDXJ 36,647,321

10/31/12

GDX 25,409,028
GDXJ 42,837,927

I still say they can't really keep GBG in there just for charter compliance - but that's my opinion only. What's intriguing to me is that GDXJ chased this pretty hard all during '12 - that speaks to Van Eck seeing these assets as being extremely undervalued at much much higher prices. Sucks to be them and have to sell them now.