ETF comparison
VAW vs XLB
Both Materials.
Vanguard Materials Index Fund ETF Shares · State Street Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF
Holdings overlap
26 positions appear in both funds. Buying equal dollars of VAW and XLB would leave roughly 73.2% 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
XLB is 1 bps cheaper than VAW. On a $100,000 position that's about $10/yr more in fees for VAW.
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 VAW vs XLB.
Top shared holdings
26 shared in total| # | Holding | In VAW | In XLB | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Linde PLC | 14.53% | 14.42% | 14.42% |
| 2 | Newmont Corp | 8.71% | 7.36% | 7.36% |
| 3 | Freeport-McMoRan Inc | 5.96% | 5.26% | 5.26% |
| 4 | Sherwin-Williams Co/The | 5.24% | 4.60% | 4.60% |
| 5 | CRH PLC | 4.92% | 4.51% | 4.51% |
| 6 | Ecolab Inc | 4.80% | 4.29% | 4.29% |
| 7 | Air Products and Chemicals Inc | 3.58% | 4.67% | 3.58% |
| 8 | Corteva Inc | 3.32% | 4.75% | 3.32% |
| 9 | Vulcan Materials Co | 2.50% | 4.51% | 2.50% |
| 10 | Martin Marietta Materials Inc | 2.49% | 4.40% | 2.49% |
| 11 | Nucor Corp | 2.48% | 4.39% | 2.48% |
| 12 | PPG Industries Inc | 1.70% | 3.01% | 1.70% |
Only in VAW
86 total- Amrize Ltd 1.97%
- Royal Gold Inc 1.54%
- Coeur Mining Inc 1.06%
- Hecla Mining Co 1.02%
- Reliance Inc 1.01%
- RPM International Inc 0.89%
- Crown Holdings Inc 0.81%
- Solstice Advanced Materials Inc 0.77%
- Alcoa Corp 0.73%
- AptarGroup Inc 0.58%
Only in XLB
1 total- State Street Global Advisors 0.01%
Open VAW or XLB 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.