RING vs SGDJ

RINGBiShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF

SGDJBSprott Junior Gold Miners ETF

In short

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.

SGDJ Junior gold, filtered. Sprott runs roughly 30 explorers, developers and producers through a revenue-growth and price-momentum screen instead of owning the entire junior bench by size alone.

Stated mandate

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.

SGDJ The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Solactive Junior Gold Miners Custom Factor Index. It uses passive indexing and invests primarily in junior gold companies, including exploration-stage companies, developers and producers.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• SGDJ The screen is the whole point: the index tilts toward junior miners with better revenue growth and price momentum, not just whatever is small and listed.
• 0.50% a year, a shade under the median for precious-metals miner funds and under GDXJ's 0.52% for the broader junior basket.
• Trading since 2015 from a house built around precious metals, and it sits in the upper half of its miner peer group on our review.
• Rules-based and passive: it follows a published Solactive index rather than a manager's stock picks, so you can see what the portfolio is chasing.

Worth knowing

• 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.

• SGDJ Juniors are the jumpy end of an already jumpy sector. Exploration-stage names move on drill results and financing, not only on the gold price.
• About 30 holdings, spread across US, developed, emerging and frontier listings. Concentration means one company's news lands harder than in a broad miner index.
• Moderately traded rather than a top-of-book name, so spreads deserve a look and limit orders earn their keep.

Full RING profile⁠

Full SGDJ profile⁠