GOEX vs RING

GOEXCGlobal X Gold Explorers ETF

RINGBiShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF

In short

GOEX Most gold funds buy the miners already pulling metal out of the ground. GOEX buys the ones still looking for it: a global basket of explorers and developers, tracking a Solactive index since 2010.

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

GOEX The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Solactive Global Gold Explorers & Developers Total Return Index.

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

• GOEX Owns the front end of the gold supply chain: explorers and developers hunting deposits and building mines, not the established producers most gold funds lean on.
• About 50 names, a global mandate, and a portfolio that stays tight to the explorers-and-developers index it names.
• Trading since 2010, so there is a real record across more than one full gold cycle to dig through.

• 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

• GOEX At 0.65% a year it costs more than the category heavyweights: GDX charges 0.51%, RING 0.39%.
• It trades lightly next to the big gold-miner funds, so bid-ask spreads can widen when markets move fast.
• Explorers and developers often have no producing mine and no revenue, which makes for a bumpier ride than producer-heavy gold funds.

• 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 GOEX profile⁠

Full RING profile⁠