Mining Funds Compared: 7 ETFs by Fee and Holdings

A mining fund is a pooled investment that holds shares of mining companies, so you own a slice of many miners instead of one mine. The largest of the seven funds compared here, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX), held 63 holdings and US$24.35 billion in assets on 4 November 2026 and charges a 0.51% annual fee. This page compares seven mining funds on fee, size, holdings and swings in price, explains how gold mining funds differ from broad and copper funds, and gives a fee calculator. It states facts and is not investment advice.

Three terms first. An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a fund whose shares trade on a stock exchange all day. The expense ratio is the yearly fee, shown as a percentage of the money in the fund. Assets under management (AUM) is the total value the fund holds. All fund figures below are from the fund pages named in each link, taken at the close of 4 November 2026 unless a different date is shown, and they change daily.

Mining funds compared: seven ETFs by fee, size and holdings

The seven funds below were picked because each tracks a different slice of the mining business: gold, junior gold, broad metals, copper and silver. The fee column is the fund’s own expense ratio. The top-10 column is the share of the fund held in its ten biggest positions, which tells you how much the fund depends on a few companies.

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Assets under management of seven mining funds

US$ billion, close of 4 November 2026

Sources: GDXJ, XME, PICK, COPX and SIL fund pages on stockanalysis.com (4 November 2026). The RING fee and holdings come from the iShares fund page, which showed net assets of US$2.23 billion and 40 holdings on 14 October 2026; stockanalysis.com counted 52 positions and US$2.06 billion on 4 November. *RING’s top-10 share is from the stockanalysis.com list of 52 positions, so it is not directly comparable with the issuer’s count of 40. Fee figures match the issuer pages for XME (State Street) and COPX (Global X).

The fees sit in a narrow band, from 0.35% to 0.65% a year. What differs far more is what is inside. Newmont, for example, is 17.65% of RING but 11.64% of GDX, because the two use different indexes and caps.

Mining investment funds: ETF, mutual fund, closed-end and private

Mining investment funds come in four common wrappers, and the wrapper changes cost, access and how you get your money out.

• ETFs trade on an exchange. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notes that an ETF’s market price can sit above or below the value of its holdings, called a premium or discount, and that ETFs have tended to cost less to run than similar mutual funds. The premium or discount and the bid-ask spread are shown on the fund’s own page.
• Mutual funds are bought and sold at the day’s closing value, not during the day. Several gold and natural-resources mutual funds exist; read the prospectus for the fee and the manager’s limits.
• Closed-end funds have a fixed number of shares that trade on an exchange, often at a discount to the value of what they hold.
• Private mining funds pool money from larger investors to back exploration or development companies. In the US these are usually open only to accredited investors. Under SEC Rule 501, that means a person with income above US$200,000 (US$300,000 with a spouse) in each of the last two years, or net worth above US$1 million not counting the primary home, among other tests.

In every wrapper you own shares of companies, not mines. The fund cannot tell you whether a particular mine has the grade, permits or water it needs. That is a separate question, and the last sections of this page return to it.

Gold mining funds: GDX, GDXJ and RING

Gold mining funds hold the companies that dig gold, not the metal. That is a different bet from a gold bullion fund. State Street’s gold trust GLD lists a 0.40% gross expense ratio and its smaller sibling GLDM lists 0.10%, and both aim to follow the gold price. A miner earns the gap between the gold price and what it costs to mine an ounce, so its shares can move by more than gold does, in both directions.

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Average gold price, 2021 to 2025

US$ per troy ounce; 2025 is a USGS estimate

Trading Economics quoted gold at about US$4,120 per troy ounce on 5 November 2026 (a troy ounce is 31.1035 grams), against a record of US$5,608.35 in January 2026, in data back to 1968. The US Geological Survey (USGS) puts the average 2025 gold price at about US$3,300 an ounce, up from US$2,388 in 2024.

The three main gold mining funds differ in who they hold:

• GDX follows the MarketVector Global Gold Miners index. Its top positions on 4 November were Newmont (11.64%), Agnico Eagle Mines (11.36%), Barrick Mining (8.22%), Wheaton Precious Metals (5.48%) and Franco-Nevada (5.44%). The last two are streaming and royalty companies, which collect metal or a share of revenue from other firms’ mines instead of running mines themselves.
• GDXJ follows the MVIS Global Junior Gold Miners index, which tilts to smaller companies. Its top ten holds only 40.6% of the fund, led by Alamos Gold (6.49%), Equinox Gold (6.26%) and Coeur Mining (5.90%).
• RING follows the MSCI ACWI Select Gold Miners IMI index, charges 0.39% and put more of the fund into the biggest names: Newmont 17.65% and Agnico Eagle 12.79% on 4 November.

For a deeper look at the companies behind these funds, see our ranking of the top 20 gold mining companies by output. Output has been broadly flat, and the World Gold Council reports that mined gold reached 3,645 tonnes in 2024, the second highest year on record, and it expected 2025 to set a new high.

▶ Follows a gold nugget from rock to ring, the business a gold mining fund’s companies run. · 5:27

How far these funds swing in price

A mining fund is not a calm holding. Over the 52 weeks to 4 November 2026, GDXJ traded between US$87.35 and US$157.49, a gap of 80%. At the 4 November close of US$104.24 it sat about 34% under that high. GDX closed at US$84.59, about 28% under its 52-week high of US$117.18. SIL ended at US$78.11, about 35% under its high of US$119.24. iShares reports a three-year standard deviation of 40.80% for RING to September 2026, which is a measure of how widely its price moved.

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52-week price range of seven mining funds

US$ per share, to the close of 4 November 2026

Calculated from fund-page prices, the pattern is clear: a fund can fall a long way from its high even while the metal itself stays high. Miners carry costs, debt, mine stoppages and political risk on top of the metal price. Broad funds like PICK and XME swing less, with 52-week highs about 57% to 58% above their lows, against 72% to 93% for the gold, copper and silver funds.

What the funds actually hold

Funds spread risk across companies, but how much depends on the index. Two things matter: the number of holdings and the weight of the biggest few.

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Holdings count against top-10 concentration

Six mining funds, 4 November 2026

SIL is the most concentrated of the seven: Wheaton Precious Metals alone is 22.71% of the fund, and the top ten are 74.7%. PICK has 289 holdings but BHP is 13.95% of it, and Rio Tinto appears on two listings worth 8.70% together. GDXJ is the most spread out among the gold funds, with 159 holdings and a top-ten share near 41%.

XME is the odd one out. It is an equal-weighted index of US metals and mining companies, and its biggest positions on 4 November were Cleveland-Cliffs, Reliance, Nucor, Steel Dynamics and Commercial Metals, which together made up about 31% of the fund. These are steel producers and metals processors. Newmont is 4.87% and Freeport-McMoRan 4.73%. XME holds some gold and copper companies, but steel and metals processors take a larger share of it.

COPX is spread evenly: its ten biggest positions, led by Boliden, Teck Resources, Antofagasta, BHP and Anglo American, each sat between about 4.5% and 5% on 4 November (Global X’s 14 October list showed Teck at 5.62%). For more on US copper producers, see our ranking of US copper mining companies by output.

Copper, silver and rare earth funds

Not every mining fund is about gold. Metal-specific funds let you match a view on one commodity, and each has its own quirks.

• Copper (COPX): holds 46 companies on stockanalysis.com (Global X listed 40 on 14 October 2026) at a 0.65% fee. Global X reports US$6.97 billion in net assets on 14 October 2026; by 4 November stockanalysis.com showed US$6.13 billion.
• Silver (SIL): 44 companies at 0.65%, heavy in streaming and royalty firms such as Wheaton and OR Royalties, plus miners like Pan American Silver, Coeur and Hecla.
• Strategic metals (REMX): VanEck’s rare earth and strategic metals fund held 36 holdings and US$1.66 billion at a 0.53% fee on 15 October 2026, with lithium names such as SQM and Albemarle beside rare earth firms such as MP Materials and Lynas.
• Australia (MVR): VanEck’s Australian Resources ETF lists a 0.35% management fee, 36 securities and A$791.23 million in assets on 15 October 2026. It includes oil and gas as well as miners.

Narrow funds hold companies tied to one metal. Broad funds hold miners across many metals. Neither removes the risk that a single mine fails, because the fund still depends on the companies.

Fund fees: what the expense ratio costs

A 0.5% fee sounds small. Over ten years on US$10,000 it is about US$500 even if the fund never grows, and more if it does. The calculator below compares two funds on a flat basis, so you can see what a gap such as 0.65% versus 0.35% adds up to. The result ignores trading costs, bid-ask spreads, taxes and growth in the fund’s value.

Five checks on a fund’s own page

A fund’s own page and fact sheet hold most of the figures worth reading. The steps in the graphic cover what to read. Two extra checks help: first, the fund’s top holdings (a name that is 20% of the fund drives a large share of its results); second, whether the index includes streaming and royalty companies, since those earn money differently from a mine operator.

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Check a mining fund in five steps

1. 1Read the indexFind which companies the fund tracks and what it leaves out.
2. 2Check the top tenA name above 20% drives a large share of the fund’s results.
3. 3Read the feeCompare the expense ratio on the issuer page.
4. 4Check price against valueLook at the premium or discount and the bid-ask spread.
5. 5Look at the swingsRead the 52-week range and the standard deviation.

What a fund cannot show you: the ground

A mining fund gives you the company, not the rock. Nevada, for example, produced about 64% of US gold in 2025, according to USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026. A fund buyer sees a share price. A mine owner, a claim holder or a consultant has to know the ground: where the alteration is, where the structures run and what a licence area is likely to hold, which starts with the type of ore deposit involved.

That is where satellite imagery helps people who hold or plan to buy a licence. Satellites cannot see gold itself, but they can map the rock around it, such as iron-stained surfaces, clay minerals and long faults. Farmonaut’s satellite-based mineral detection turns a licence boundary into an exploration target map in 5 to 20 business days, ahead of any drilling. These are targets, not a resource estimate, and nothing here is a JORC or NI 43-101 statement. Licence owners and consultants who want their own area screened can request a quote, or contact the team with questions first.

▶ Explains how satellites map the rock around gold, such as iron stains, clay and faults. · 4:25

How we chose these funds

We picked the largest US-listed ETFs we found in each mining niche, checked on stockanalysis.com fund pages: GDX and GDXJ (gold), RING (gold, a second index), XME and PICK (broad metals) and COPX and SIL (copper and silver). Rankings by assets alone would leave out the copper and silver funds that most readers ask about, so each slice is represented. Fee and holdings figures come from the issuer page where one could be opened and from stockanalysis.com for the 4 November close. We did not rank the funds by past return, because past returns do not predict future ones, and we give no price targets. Gold, silver and copper royalty companies are covered only where they sit inside a fund.

Frequently asked questions

What is a mining fund?

A mining fund pools investors’ money to buy shares of mining companies, or sometimes to finance mining projects directly. Most public ones are ETFs or mutual funds. You own fund shares, not the mines themselves.

What are gold mining funds, and how do they differ from gold funds?

Gold mining funds hold the shares of companies that mine gold. A gold fund such as GLD holds the metal and aims to follow its price. Miners add costs, debt and operating risk, so their shares can move more than gold does.

What is the largest gold mining ETF?

By assets on 4 November 2026, it was the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) at US$24.35 billion, ahead of the VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) at US$7.15 billion (stockanalysis.com).

What do mining funds cost each year?

The seven funds on this page charge between 0.35% (XME) and 0.65% (COPX and SIL) a year. The fee comes out of the fund’s value, so you do not get a separate bill. Brokers may also charge trading commissions.

Are mining investment funds safer than buying one mining stock?

They spread the risk across companies, but they do not remove it. GDXJ fell about 34% from its 52-week high by the 4 November 2026 close, and the whole sector tends to move together when metal prices fall.

Can anyone invest in a private mining fund?

In the US, private funds are normally limited to accredited investors, defined in SEC Rule 501. Public ETFs and mutual funds have no such limit.

What is the difference between GDX and GDXJ?

GDX holds larger gold miners and has 63 holdings. GDXJ holds smaller companies and has 159. GDXJ moved more over the past year: its 52-week range was 80% wide, against 72% for GDX.

Do gold mining funds include royalty companies?

Some do. GDX holds Wheaton Precious Metals and Franco-Nevada, and SIL holds Wheaton and OR Royalties. Royalty and streaming firms earn money from other companies’ mines, with lower operating costs but less control.

Is there a mining fund for copper or silver only?

Yes. COPX holds copper miners and SIL holds silver miners. REMX covers rare earth and strategic metals. Each follows a narrower group of companies, so it can be more volatile than a broad fund.

Where can I check a fund’s current holdings?

Use the issuer’s own fund page or fact sheet, which lists holdings, fees and the premium or discount to value. The SEC’s Investor.gov explains what to look for in an ETF.

Can satellite data tell me if a mining company has good ground?

Not for a fund buyer, who cannot access each company’s licences. For a licence owner or consultant, satellite screening can rank parts of an area as exploration targets, which is an early step before drilling.