The first quarter of 2019 is over, and it’s been a huge boon for stock market investors. Major market benchmarks like the Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 posted double-digit percentage gains for the first three months of the year, and despite some concerns about a possible economic slowdown, many market participants are more optimistic than ever about the long-term prospects for the market.

You’ll find hundreds of exchange-traded funds with positive returns so far this year, especially those that take big bets on market sectors by using leverage. However, even among unlevered ETFs, you’ll find a lot of impressive gains. The table below shows you three of the best-performing ETFs so far in 2019, and we’ll take a closer look at them to see whether they have more room to run for the remainder of the year.

The 1st quarter’s top ETFs

ETF

Assets Under Management

YTD Return

Data source: Fund companies, ETFdb.com. Includes only non-leveraged ETFs with assets of $100 million or more.

Investors make the cannabis connection

Marijuana stocks have soared so far in 2019, rebounding sharply from a disappointing end to 2018. That’s been a huge boon for ETFMG Alternative Harvest, which includes among its holdings the top prospects among cannabis growers, distributors, and supporting companies. Having just pushed through the $1 billion mark in assets early in the quarter, Alternative Harvest is finding that new investors are flooding in at the same time that the value of the stocks in its portfolio has also climbed.

The cannabis industry is soaring on hopes that rising demand for a wide variety of products will remain on a steep upslope for the foreseeable future. Between the opening of the Canadian recreational market last October, the subsequent legalization of hemp and hemp-based products in the U.S. in December, and a host of worldwide developments toward greater acceptance, there’s no clear end in sight for Alternative Harvest to capitalize on this explosive sector.

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