New Delhi, Feb. 11 -- Gold and silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are now among the top five picks financed by brokers under the margin trade funding (MTF) facility on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The trend reflects investors' growing appetite for portfolio diversification amid rangebound markets and external headwinds.

While the popular SilverBees, or Nippon India Silver ETF, held the top spot on brokers' MTF books as recently as 1 February, Nippon India's gold ETF, GoldBees, which ranked seventh as of that date, surpassed silver to move to the third slot, with the latter at the fifth place as of 9 February, according to NSE data.

GoldBees was third only to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Jio Financial Services, which were t...