ETF comparison
VAW vs XME
Both Materials.
Vanguard Materials Index Fund ETF Shares · State Street SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF
Holdings overlap
27 positions appear in both funds. Buying equal dollars of VAW and XME would leave roughly 21.0% 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 26 bps cheaper than XME. On a $100,000 position that's about $260/yr more in fees for XME.
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 XME.
Top shared holdings
27 shared in total| # | Holding | In VAW | In XME | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freeport-McMoRan Inc | 5.96% | 4.36% | 4.36% |
| 2 | Newmont Corp | 8.71% | 4.26% | 4.26% |
| 3 | Nucor Corp | 2.48% | 4.50% | 2.48% |
| 4 | Steel Dynamics Inc | 1.65% | 4.46% | 1.65% |
| 5 | Royal Gold Inc | 1.54% | 4.21% | 1.54% |
| 6 | Coeur Mining Inc | 1.06% | 3.83% | 1.06% |
| 7 | Hecla Mining Co | 1.02% | 4.02% | 1.02% |
| 8 | Reliance Inc | 1.01% | 4.51% | 1.01% |
| 9 | Alcoa Corp | 0.73% | 4.57% | 0.73% |
| 10 | MP Materials Corp | 0.51% | 3.54% | 0.51% |
| 11 | Commercial Metals Co | 0.50% | 4.22% | 0.50% |
| 12 | Cleveland-Cliffs Inc | 0.37% | 4.16% | 0.37% |
Only in VAW
85 total- Linde PLC 14.53%
- 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%
- Amrize Ltd 1.97%
- PPG Industries Inc 1.70%
Only in XME
11 total- Core Natural Resources Inc 4.99%
- Peabody Energy Corp 4.36%
- Uranium Energy Corp 4.36%
- Centrus Energy Corp 3.96%
- Hycroft Mining Holding Corp 3.42%
- Ur-Energy Inc 0.66%
- Idaho Strategic Resources Inc 0.62%
- Dakota Gold Corp 0.52%
- American Battery Technology Co 0.47%
- Lightbridge Corp 0.44%
Open VAW or XME 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.