ETF comparison
GDX vs VAW
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 roughly 12.4% of each dollar exposed to the same underlying securities.
Unmatched is the part of a fund's weight the other fund doesn't match: names only it holds, plus any extra weight it puts in names both funds hold.
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 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 the cost 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% | 8.77% | 8.77% |
| 2 | Royal Gold Inc | 1.95% | 1.43% | 1.43% |
| 3 | Coeur Mining Inc | 2.38% | 1.39% | 1.39% |
| 4 | Hecla Mining Co | 1.38% | 0.86% | 0.86% |
Only in GDX
57 total- Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd 10.67%
- Barrick Mining Corp 7.95%
- Wheaton Precious Metals Corp 5.60%
- Anglogold Ashanti Plc 5.04%
- Franco-Nevada Corp 4.89%
- Kinross Gold Corp 4.39%
- Gold Fields Ltd 4.07%
- Pan American Silver Corp 2.97%
- Northern Star Resources Ltd 2.63%
- Alamos Gold Inc 1.89%
Only in VAW
106 total- Linde PLC 14.62%
- Freeport-McMoRan Inc 7.01%
- Sherwin-Williams Co/The 5.13%
- Ecolab Inc 4.64%
- CRH PLC 4.07%
- Air Products and Chemicals Inc 4.03%
- Corteva Inc 3.66%
- Nucor Corp 3.57%
- Vulcan Materials Co 2.27%
- Steel Dynamics Inc 2.06%
Related comparisons
More comparisons with GDX
- GDX vs XME · State Street SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF 9.9%
- GDX vs FMAT · Fidelity MSCI Materials Index ETF 9.6%
- GDX vs GUNR · Northern Trust Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources ETF 9.5%
- GDX vs XLB · State Street Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF 5.8%
- GDX vs PICK · iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers ETF 0.5%
- GDX vs COPX · Global X Copper Miners ETF 0.0%
More comparisons with VAW
- VAW vs GUNR · Northern Trust Morningstar Global Upstream Natural Resources ETF 9.6%
- VAW vs COPX · Global X Copper Miners ETF 4.8%
- VAW vs GDXJ · VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF 2.5%
- VAW vs URA · Global X Uranium ETF 0.0%
- VAW vs URNM · Sprott Uranium Miners ETF 0.0%
- VAW vs VGT · Vanguard Information Technology Index Fund ETF Shares 0.0%
Percentages are holdings overlap with the named fund.
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 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.