The 4 largest mining sector ETFs that pay dividends
The mining sector in 2026 is one of the most divided parts of the equity market. While copper and industrial metals are being driven higher by demand from data centers and energy infrastructure, gold producers are writing off tens of percent after the January record. The four largest mining ETFs on the US market are thus delivering completely different results for investors this year, even though they all fall into the same sector bucket. What makes them different and what does their diverging performance say about today's commodity cycle?
Key points
Precious metals move on rates and monetary policy, industrial metals on infrastructure and data centers. This year they are moving in opposite directions, the difference being about 25 percentage points.
The fixed costs of a mine mean that a miner moves multiples faster than the price of the metal. This year's loss for the precious metals fund is double the decline of the metal itself.
A fund with 255 names in the portfolio has a quarter of its assets in two companies. The weighting methodology matters, not the number of holdings.
Profits are coming from record metal prices. The average annual return of all four funds since inception is 4.6% to 5.8%.
Mining companies are often lumped together. In reality, however, there are huge differences between them. A gold mining company lives a completely different story than a copper or steel producer. Each is driven by different macroeconomic forces, different commodity prices, and often different risks. That's precisely why picking individual stocks in this sector is difficult. It's not enough to simply watch the commodity price; you also need to consider mining costs, the size of reserves, mine lives, or the political risks of the countries where the companies operate. Mining ETFs thus represent the simplest way to bet on the whole sector without the need to analyze each individual stock.
This diversity is fully manifesting itself this year. While gold producers react mainly to interest rates, inflation, and central bank monetary policy, industrial metal miners are much more sensitive to economic growth, infrastructure construction, or investments in data centers and electrification. The result is that two companies from the same sector can deliver completely different performance in the same year.
This is best seen in the development of the commodities themselves. Gold surged to an all-time high above $5,597 per ounce on January 29, 2026, from which it subsequently wrote off about 28%. The main reason was a change in expectations regarding US interest rates. The Fed under Kevin Warsh left rates in the 3.50% to 3.75% range and the market began to price in the possibility of another hike. Higher interest rates traditionally reduce the attractiveness of gold, since it bears no yield itself.
Copper, for example, moved in the completely opposite direction. It was trading around $6.44 per pound at the end of July, marking a year-on-year increase of about 46%. The rise is driven by a combination of several factors: long-term growing demand for electrification and artificial intelligence, record investments in data centers, limited supply, and the risk of mining disruptions in Chile. Moreover, US tariff policy played a significant role, changing copper trade flows around the world.
That's precisely why it is interesting to look at the largest mining ETFs. Even though they all fall into the same sector, each bets on a different group of companies. The differences clearly show which parts of the mining industry today are benefiting from macroeconomic trends and which, on the contrary, face an unfavorable environment.