ETF comparison
GDXvsVAW
Both Materials.
VanEck Gold Miners ETF · Vanguard Materials Index Fund ETF Shares
Holdings overlap
4 positions appear in both funds. Buying equal dollars of GDX and VAW would leave roughly11.0%of each dollar exposed to the same underlying securities.
Side by side
Sub-score comparison
Tracking quality isn't part of the composite — seewhat we don't scorefor why.
Cost difference
VAW is 42 bps cheaper than GDX. On a $100,000 position that's about $420/yr more in fees for GDX.
Fee figure is the annual expense charged on $100,000. To see how the gap compounds over a multi-decade holding period, open thecost calculator pre-filled with GDX vs VAW.
Top shared holdings
4 shared in total| # | Holding | In GDX | In VAW | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newmont Corp | 10.41% | 7.69% | 7.69% |
| 2 | Coeur Mining Inc | 2.38% | 1.28% | 1.28% |
| 3 | Royal Gold Inc | 1.95% | 1.22% | 1.22% |
| 4 | Hecla Mining Co | 1.38% | 0.76% | 0.76% |
Only in GDX
58 total- Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd10.67%
- Barrick Mining Corp7.95%
- Wheaton Precious Metals Corp5.60%
- Anglogold Ashanti Plc5.04%
- Franco-Nevada Corp4.89%
- Kinross Gold Corp4.39%
- Gold Fields Ltd4.07%
- Pan American Silver Corp2.97%
- Northern Star Resources Ltd2.63%
- Alamos Gold Inc1.89%
Only in VAW
106 total- Linde PLC14.92%
- Freeport-McMoRan Inc6.06%
- CRH PLC4.68%
- Sherwin-Williams Co/The4.59%
- Ecolab Inc4.19%
- Air Products and Chemicals Inc3.81%
- Nucor Corp3.67%
- Corteva Inc3.40%
- Vulcan Materials Co2.40%
- Steel Dynamics Inc2.32%
Open GDX or VAW at a brokerage
Both funds trade commission-free at major US brokerages.
Affiliate links — opening an account through these earns PlainIndex a one-time referral. Scoring is computed before any affiliate consideration; see our methodologyand funding disclosure.
Holdings overlap is the sum of min(weight_a, weight_b) over positions matched on ISIN (CUSIP fallback). Methodology: see/methodology/.
Comparing two funds doesn't endorse swapping one for the other. Tax-lot history, account type, and personal goals matter — PlainIndex publishes data and methodology, not investment advice.