INDEX METHODOLOGY

The Beacon Global Timber Index is designed to track the performance of common stocks of global timber companies. The universe of eligible securities includes firms who own or lease forested land and harvest the timber for commercial use and sale of wood-based products, including lumber, pulp or other processed or finished goods such as paper and packaging. The Index Provider identifies global timber companies predominantly through proprietary research and use of the Standard and Poor’s Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). After identification of a global timber company (as defined above) through proprietary research, Beacon searches through publicly available information about such companies via Bloomberg, Reuters, and other more widely available resources including Yahoo Finance, Google, and individual company web sites to determine that the company harvests timber from forested land owned or leased by such company rather than purchasing timber externally as a raw material for product development. Potential Index constituents are categorized as follows according to their degree of exposure to timber: Category A is comprised of companies with high exposure to timber by virtue of owning and/or managing forested land and marketing forest products; Category B includes companies with medium exposure to timber by virtue of owning and/or managing forested land and marketing paper products or packaging materials; and Category C is comprised of companies with low exposure to timber by virtue of marketing forest products or paper products or packaging materials while not owning and/or managing forested land and harvesting trees. Companies with Category C exposure are not considered for inclusion in the Index.

The weighting of companies within the Index reflects the distribution of forest land across regions of the world. Index constituents with forested land exclusively in North America reflect the worldwide proportion of North American forested land, while Index components with forested land outside of North America reflect the worldwide proportion of forested land outside North America. This information is based on public sources including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Companies that exclusively own or lease forested land in North America are limited in their representation in the Index to the proportion of forested land in North America. To maintain this proportion, of the companies that own or lease forest land exclusively in North America, only Category A firms are included. Companies in the rest of the world from both Categories A and B comprise the balance of the Index. Company weights are assigned using a modified market cap weighting method, with no company weight exceeding 4.5% at the time of each rebalance. In the event that companies outside North America make up a proportion of the Index less than their representative weight in forest land, the North American company weights will be increased to make up the difference, including Category B North American firms if required. Likewise, if North American Category A companies make up a proportion of the Index less than their representative weight in forest land, the weights of companies outside North America will be increased to make up the difference.

The Index constituent selection methodology was developed by Beacon as a quantitative approach to select stocks from the Index universe. The constituent selection model evaluates and selects stocks from the Index universe using a proprietary, 100% rules-based methodology developed by Beacon. The approach is specifically designed to enhance investment applications and investability. The constituent selection process is repeated annually and the Index rebalance is conducted quarterly.

INDEX CONSTRUCTION

Eligible securities include all common stocks listed on global exchanges that meet the following criteria at of the time of each reconstitution. Beacon, based upon publicly available information, verifies that each company included in the universe of potential Index constituents meets the following criteria:

1. Potential Index constituents include all equities, ADRs and GDRs of global timber companies, as defined above, trading on U.S. and global exchanges.
2. Potential Index constituents must have a minimum average daily trading volume greater than or equal to 75,000 shares and minimum average daily trading volume of over $500,000 over the past month.
3. Index constituents must have a market capitalization greater than or equal to $300 million at the time of each reconstitution.
4. The Index includes all companies from Category A that exclusively own/lease forested land in North America, along with Category A and Category B firms from the rest of the world.
5. Each constituent is ranked for inclusion using a 100% rules-based methodology described above under “Index Methodology.”
6. The selected companies are weighted using a modified market capitalization weighting methodology. Each company can have a maximum weight of 4.5% at the time of each reconstitution.
7. The constituent selection process is repeated annually and the Index rebalance is conducted quarterly.

RISKS AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Investors should consider the following risk factors and special considerations associated with investing in the Fund, which may cause you to lose money.

Investment Risk. An investment in the Fund is subject to investment risk, including the possible loss of the entire principal amount that you invest.

Equity Risk. A principal risk of investing in the Fund is equity risk, which is the risk that the value of the securities held by the Fund will fall due to general market and economic conditions, perceptions regarding the industries in which the issuers of securities held by the Fund participate, or factors relating to specific companies in which the Fund invests. For example, an adverse event, such as an unfavorable earnings report, may depress the value of equity securities of an issuer held by the Fund; the price of common stock of an issuer may be particularly sensitive to general movements in the stock market; or a drop in the stock market may depress the price of most or all of the common stocks and other equity securities held by the Fund. In addition, common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments because, among other reasons, the issuer of the security experiences a decline in its financial condition. Common stock is subordinated to preferred stocks, bonds and other debt instruments in a company’s capital structure, in terms of priority to corporate income, and therefore will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of such issuers. In addition, while broad market measures of common stocks have historically generated higher average returns than fixed income securities, common stocks have also experienced significantly more volatility in those returns.

Global Timber Industry Risk. As the Index is comprised of issuers in the global timber industry, the Fund is therefore focused in that industry. Accordingly, the Fund may be subject to more risks than if it were broadly diversified over numerous industries and sectors of the economy. The market value of securities of global timber companies may be affected by numerous factors, including events occurring in nature and international politics. For example, the volume and value of timber that can be harvested from timberlands may be limited by natural disasters and other events such as fire, volcanic eruptions, insect infestation, disease, ice storms, wind storms, flooding, other weather conditions and other causes. In periods of poor logging conditions, global timber companies may harvest less timber than expected. Global timber companies involved in the forest, paper and packaging products industries are highly competitive globally, including significant competition from non-wood and engineered wood products, and no single company is dominant. These industries have suffered, and continue to suffer, from excess capacity. Global timber companies are subject to many federal, state and local environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, particularly with respect to the restoration and reforestation of timberlands, harvesting timber near waterways, discharges of pollutants and emissions, and the management, disposal and remediation of hazardous substances or other contaminants. Political risks and the other risks to which foreign securities are subject may also affect domestic companies in which the Fund may invest if they have significant operations or investments in foreign countries. In particular, tariffs, quotas or trade agreements can also affect the markets for products of global timber companies, particularly wood products. In addition, rising interest rates and general economic conditions may affect the demand for timber products.

Foreign Investment Risk. The Fund’s investments in non-U.S. issuers may involve unique risks compared to investing in securities of U.S. issuers, including, among others, greater market volatility than U.S. securities and less complete financial information than for U.S. issuers. In addition, adverse political, economic or social developments could undermine the value of the Fund’s investments or prevent the Fund from realizing the full value of its investments. Financial reporting standards for companies based in foreign markets differ from those in the United States. Finally, the value of the currency of the country in which the Fund has invested could decline relative to the value of the U.S. dollar, which may affect the value of the investment to U.S. investors. In addition, the underlying issuers of certain depositary receipts, particularly unsponsored or unregistered depositary receipts, are under no obligation to distribute shareholder communications to the holders of such receipts, or to pass through to them any voting rights with respect to the deposited securities.

Emerging market countries are countries that major international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, generally consider to be less economically mature than developed nations. Emerging market countries can include every nation in the world except the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and most countries located in Western Europe. Investing in foreign countries, particularly emerging market countries, entails the risk that news and events unique to a country or region will affect those markets and their issuers. Countries with emerging markets may have relatively unstable governments, may present the risks of nationalization of businesses, restrictions on foreign ownership and prohibitions on the repatriation of assets. The economies of emerging markets countries also may be based on only a few industries, making them more vulnerable to changes in local or global trade conditions and more sensitive to debt burdens or inflation rates. Local securities markets may trade a small number of securities and may be unable to respond effectively to increases in trading volume, potentially making prompt liquidation of holdings difficult or impossible at times.

Small and Medium-Sized Company Risk. Investing in securities of small and medium-sized companies involves greater risk than is customarily associated with investing in more established companies. These companies’ stocks may be more volatile and less liquid than those of more established companies. These stocks may have returns that vary, sometimes significantly, from the overall stock market.

Non-Correlation Risk. The Fund’s return may not match the return of the Index for a number of reasons. For example, the Fund incurs a number of operating expenses not applicable to the Index, and incurs costs in buying and selling securities, especially when rebalancing the Fund’s securities holdings to reflect changes in the composition of the Index.

The Fund may not be fully invested at times, either as a result of cash flows into the Fund or reserves of cash held by the Fund to meet redemptions and expenses. If the Fund utilizes a sampling approach or futures or other derivative positions, its return may not correlate as well with the return on the Index, as would be the case if it purchased all of the stocks in the Index with the same weightings as the Index.

Replication Management Risk. Unlike many investment companies, the Fund is not “actively” managed. Therefore, it would not necessarily sell a stock because the stock’s issuer was in financial trouble unless that stock is removed from the Index.

Issuer-Specific Changes. The value of an individual security or particular type of security can be more volatile than the market as a whole and can perform differently from the value of the market as a whole. The value of securities of smaller issuers can be more volatile than that of larger issuers.

Non-Diversified Fund Risk. The Fund is considered non-diversified and can invest a greater portion of assets in securities of individual issuers than a diversified fund. As a result, changes in the market value of a single investment could cause greater fluctuations in share price than would occur in a diversified fund.

Claymore ETFs are listed on the  NYSE Arca, depending on the ETF listing, the same way as shares of a publicly-traded company. Claymore ETFs can be purchased through most brokerage accounts. They can be bought and sold throughout the day on the NYSE Arca, depending on the ETF listing, during normal trading hours. The Fund issues and redeems shares at NAV only in large blocks of 80,000 shares (each block of 80,000 shares is called a “Creation Unit”) or multiples thereof. Only broker-dealers or large institutional investors with creation and redemption agreements, called Authorized Participants (“APs”), can purchase or redeem these Creation Units.

Investors buying or selling ETF shares on the secondary market may incur brokerage costs and other transactional fees. Shares of ETFs may fluctuate in price due to daily changes in trading volume. At times, shares may not have a high volume of trading. Except when aggregated in Creation Units, Shares are not redeemable securities of the Fund.

The Fund is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Beacon Indexes LLC (“Licensor”). Licensor makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding the advisability of investing in securities generally or in the Fund particularly or the ability of the Beacon Global Timber Index (“Index”) to track general market performance. Licensor’s only relationship to the Claymore Advisors, LLC (“Licensee”) is the licensing of the Index which is determined, composed and calculated by Licensor without regard to the Licensee or the Fund. Licensor has no obligation to take the needs of the Licensee or the owners of the Fund into consideration in determining, composing or calculating the Index. Licensor shall not be liable to any person for any error in the Index nor shall it be under any obligation to advise any person of any error therein.