Canada's largest cannabis-related exchange-traded fund is adding 10 new marijuana stocks to its portfolio.

Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. announced, as part of its latest quarterly rebalancing, the shares of 10 new companies were added to the portfolio of Toronto-listed Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF (HMMJ).

Medical cannaboid provider Nuuvera Inc. will hold the largest weighting of the new firms with 1.7 per cent, with the remaining companies holding approximately 1 per cent or less of the index. Licensed marijuana producer Aphria Inc. announced an agreement in January to buy medical cannabis firm Nuuvera in a cash-and-stock deal that it says values the company at $826-million.

Story continues below advertisement

British-Columbia based Hiku Brands Co. Ltd. has also been added to the index, a retail cannabis outlet recently created with the merger between DOJA Cannabis Company Ltd. and TS Brandco Holdings Inc.

With a management fee of 0.75 per cent, the Horizons index aims to replicate the 47-stock North American Marijuana Index. The index is designed to provide exposure to the performance of a basket of North American publicly listed life-sciences companies with significant business activities in the marijuana industry and may include one or more of biopharmaceuticals, medical manufacturing, distribution, bioproducts and other ancillary businesses related to the marijuana industry.

Of the 47, the Horizons index now tracks 37 of them – a number that has more than doubled since the fund's inception. Last December, Steven Hawkins, president and co-chief executive officer of Horizons ETFs, said he expected to add two to five new companies to the ETF every quarter for the next year, as new companies emerge in the cannabis sector.

The 10 new companies include: