⚖️ GLD vs GDX Comparison · Free & No Signup

GLD vs GDX: Gold Bullion vs the Companies That Mine It

GLD gives you the gold price. GDX gives you gold mining stocks, which swing harder, carry company risk, and pay a dividend. They answer different questions.

💰 GLD is cheaper 🔬 Compare top 10 holdings → 💡 Plain-English verdict
🤝 BFF Take
Not Two Ways to Own Gold. One Is the Metal, One Is Mining Stocks.

GLD (SPDR Gold Shares) holds physical gold bars in a vault, so one share tracks the price of gold, pays no dividend, and costs 0.40%. GDX (VanEck Gold Miners ETF) holds the stocks of roughly 60 gold mining companies, tracking the MarketVector Global Gold Miners Index, at 0.51% with a small dividend. The 0.11% fee gap is not the story. What you own is. Mining companies are operationally leveraged to the gold price: a move in gold flows through to their profits amplified, so GDX tends to magnify gold's swings in both directions and runs far more volatile than bullion. You can see the amplification in the recent numbers, with GDX well ahead of GLD over the past three years as gold rallied. The same leverage works in reverse, and GDX carries risks bullion never does: mining costs, debt, management decisions, and the country risk of wherever the mines sit. History is the part people skip. Through much of the 2010s, miners badly lagged the metal despite much higher volatility, so GDX is not simply gold that pays you. GLD is the clean way to hold gold as an asset. GDX is a volatile equity bet that miner profits will rise, which is correlated with gold but not the same thing. If you want a gold allocation, GLD (or a cheaper sibling like GLDM) does that job. If you specifically want leveraged, dividend-paying exposure to miner earnings and can stomach equity-level swings, that is GDX. Size it like the sector-equity fund it is, not like a gold position.

📋 Quick Takeaways
🪙GLD holds physical gold bars (0.40%, no dividend). GDX holds about 60 gold mining stocks (0.51%, roughly 0.6% yield). Different assets, not two versions of the same fund.
⚡Miners are leveraged to the gold price through their profits, so GDX magnifies gold's moves up and down and is far more volatile than GLD.
📉Higher risk has not always meant higher returns: through much of the 2010s GDX lagged GLD badly. Recent years, in a gold rally, ran the other way.

Both funds trade commission-free at every major brokerage. Where to buy them →

✓ ETF BFF Editorial Team · Data as of Oct 1, 2026 · Educational only, not financial advice
GLD
SPDR Gold Shares
Expense Ratio
0.40% ✓
1-Year Return
+7.5%
AUM
$152.9B
Holdings
1
GDX
VanEck Gold Miners ETF
Expense Ratio
0.51%
1-Year Return
+15.5%
AUM
$30.5B
Holdings
60

📋 GLD vs GDX: Key Facts Side by Side

Metric GLD GDX
Fund Name SPDR Gold Shares VanEck Gold Miners ETF
Issuer State Street VanEck
Tracks Index Physical Gold MarketVector Global Gold Miners
Expense Ratio 0.40% ✓ 0.51%
Cost per $10K/yr $40.00 $51.00
AUM $152.9B $30.5B
Holdings 1 60
Inception 2004 2006
1-Year Return +7.54% +15.48%
3-Year Return +30.71% +50.77%
5-Year Return +18.87% +26.98%
Dividend Yield — 0.64%
Holdings Overlap See holdings overlap →
Avg Bid-Ask Spread 0.01% 0.02%

Expense ratio, AUM, and returns updated Oct 1, 2026 from ETF BFF database. Returns are annualised. Not investment advice.

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📊 GLD vs GDX: Annualised Returns

Annualised returns (trailing, price-based). Past performance does not guarantee future results.

🎯 Which Fund Fits Which Investor?

Often fits investors who...
GLD
  • want the lowest fees: saves ~$11/yr per $10K vs GDX
  • want a hedge against inflation and market drawdowns
Often fits investors who...
GDX
  • want broader diversification (60 holdings vs 1)
  • want a hedge against inflation and market drawdowns

💰 What the Fee Difference Actually Costs

Adjust the numbers for your situation. This models each fund's expense ratio compounding against your balance over time.

Assumes a constant annual return reinvested, with each fund's expense ratio deducted yearly. Illustrative only; actual returns vary. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

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❓ GLD vs GDX: Frequently Asked Questions

GLD holds physical gold bars in a vault, so it tracks the price of gold itself and pays no dividend. GDX holds the stocks of roughly 60 gold mining companies, so it tracks how those businesses perform, which is driven by the gold price but also by their costs, debt, and management. GLD is a commodity position; GDX is an equity position in a single industry. They move together much of the time but are not the same investment.
Usually, but with amplification and some slippage. Gold miners are operationally leveraged: when gold rises, the extra revenue drops toward profit, so earnings can rise faster than the metal, and GDX often magnifies gold's move. The same works in reverse on the way down. On top of that, company-specific issues like a mine problem, rising diesel and labor costs, or a bad hedge can push GDX away from the gold price in either direction. So GDX is correlated with gold, not a mirror of it.
Because it is equity, not metal. GLD owns gold, whose price is set in a deep global market. GDX owns businesses whose profits swing more than the gold price due to operating leverage, and which also carry debt, cost inflation, and country risk from where they mine. Equities as a group are more volatile than a commodity holding, and leveraged, single-industry equities more so. Expect GDX to move substantially more than GLD in both directions.
Yes. GDX yields roughly 0.6% because the mining companies it holds earn money and pay some of it out. GLD pays nothing, because physical gold produces no cash flow. That dividend is a genuine difference, but it is small and does not compensate for GDX's much higher volatility on its own. It is a feature of owning companies rather than metal, not a reason to treat GDX as a safer or steadier holding.
It depends entirely on the period. In a strong gold rally, miners' operating leverage can push GDX well ahead of GLD, as it has over the past few years. But across much of the 2010s the opposite happened: miners lagged the metal badly while delivering far more volatility, as rising costs and poor capital decisions ate into the leverage. The honest summary is that GDX has not reliably beaten GLD over full cycles, so the extra risk has not come with a dependable extra return.

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📄 GLD & GDX Fact Sheets

GLD Fact Sheet→ GDX Fact Sheet→
ℹ️ Data shown is for educational purposes and may not reflect the most current figures. Returns are trailing price-based and exclude dividend reinvestment. Past performance does not guarantee future results. ETF BFF is not a licensed financial advisor. This is not personalized financial advice.