GBUG vs RING

GBUGDSprott Active Gold & Silver Miners ETF

RINGBiShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF

In short

GBUG Sprott is a precious-metals house first, an ETF shop second. GBUG is its stock-picker answer to index miner funds: an actively managed, value-oriented and contrarian book of roughly 50 gold and silver miners, explorers and royalty names.

RING The low-fee way to own the gold diggers. RING holds roughly 40 gold mining companies worldwide for 0.39% a year, undercutting most funds in its niche, and it has been running that playbook since 2012.

Stated mandate

GBUG The ETF is actively managed and seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in shares of companies focused on gold and silver exploration, development, mining, royalty, and streaming activities.

RING The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Solactive Global Gold Explorers & Developers Total Return Index. It invests at least 80% of total assets in securities of companies economically tied to gold exploration.

Why people hold it

• GBUG Actively managed on a value-oriented, contrarian screen, so the book can lean toward beaten-up miners instead of whatever the market-cap index says is biggest.
• The mandate covers the whole chain: exploration, development, mining, royalty and streaming companies, not just the big producers.
• Roughly 50 holdings from a firm whose entire business is precious metals, so each pick carries real weight in the portfolio.

• RING At 0.39% a year it charges less than the typical gold-miner fund, and less than VanEck's GDX and GDXJ, the category's best-known names.ishares.com
• Pure play by design: the index targets companies primarily in the business of gold mining, so you get miners rather than a mixed metals-and-materials basket.ishares.com
• The mandate is global, not US-only, so the portfolio can reach gold producers listed across developed and emerging markets.ishares.com
• Live since 2012, a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and one of the strongest builds in its precious-metals miner peer group.

Worth knowing

• GBUG Charges 0.90% a year, above the typical fund in the miners group; index rivals like GDX and RING run meaningfully cheaper.
• Launched in 2025, so the manager's record in this wrapper is short and any read on its risk profile rests on limited history.
• Thinly traded with a modest asset base, so spreads can run wider than the household-name miner ETFs.

• RING Roughly 40 stocks in a single industry. The largest miners carry real weight, so one company's bad quarter is felt across the fund.ishares.com
• This is mining equity, not bullion. Alongside the gold price you take on company execution, mine geology, labor and country risk.ishares.com
• Income is an afterthought here: distributions come once or twice a year, not monthly.

Full GBUG profile⁠

Full RING profile⁠