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 12.3% 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 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 | 10.77% | 8.71% | 8.71% |
| 2 | Royal Gold Inc | 2.22% | 1.54% | 1.54% |
| 3 | Coeur Mining Inc | 2.43% | 1.06% | 1.06% |
| 4 | Hecla Mining Co | 1.26% | 1.02% | 1.02% |
Only in GDX
48 total- Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd 12.08%
- Barrick Mining Corp 7.63%
- Franco-Nevada Corp 5.16%
- Anglogold Ashanti Plc 5.09%
- Wheaton Precious Metals Corp 4.89%
- Kinross Gold Corp 4.68%
- Gold Fields Ltd 4.48%
- Pan American Silver Corp 3.19%
- Northern Star Resources Ltd 2.59%
- Alamos Gold Inc 2.56%
Only in VAW
108 total- Linde PLC 14.53%
- 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%
- Nucor Corp 2.48%
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.