ETF comparison
GDXJ vs VAW
Both Materials.
VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF · Vanguard Materials Index Fund ETF Shares
Holdings overlap
4 positions appear in both funds. Buying equal dollars of GDXJ and VAW would leave roughly 2.3% of each dollar exposed to the same underlying securities.
Side by side
Sub-score comparison
Tracking quality isn't part of the composite — see what we don't score for why.
Cost difference
VAW is 43 bps cheaper than GDXJ. On a $100,000 position that's about $430/yr more in fees for GDXJ.
Fee figure is the annual expense charged on $100,000. To see how the gap compounds over a multi-decade holding period, open the cost calculator pre-filled with GDXJ vs VAW.
Top shared holdings
4 shared in total| # | Holding | In GDXJ | In VAW | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coeur Mining Inc | 6.68% | 1.06% | 1.06% |
| 2 | Hecla Mining Co | 2.27% | 1.02% | 1.02% |
| 3 | Perpetua Resources Corp | 0.69% | 0.17% | 0.17% |
| 4 | McEwen Inc | 0.30% | 0.08% | 0.08% |
Only in GDXJ
110 total- Alamos Gold Inc 7.13%
- Equinox Gold Corp 6.64%
- Endeavour Mining PLC 6.05%
- Evolution Mining Ltd 6.01%
- First Majestic Silver Corp 2.82%
- Industrias Penoles SAB de CV 2.41%
- IAMGOLD Corp 2.37%
- Lundin Gold Inc 2.26%
- Zhaojin Mining Industry Co Ltd 2.00%
- OceanaGold Corp 1.90%
Only in VAW
108 total- Linde PLC 14.53%
- Newmont Corp 8.71%
- Freeport-McMoRan Inc 5.96%
- Sherwin-Williams Co/The 5.24%
- CRH PLC 4.92%
- Ecolab Inc 4.80%
- Air Products and Chemicals Inc 3.58%
- Corteva Inc 3.32%
- Vulcan Materials Co 2.50%
- Martin Marietta Materials Inc 2.49%
Open GDXJ 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 methodology and 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.