ETFs With the Best Returns of 2025: Gold and Silver Miners on Top
While the general stock market is going through a rough patch to start 2025, several ETFs are striking gold. The three best-performing ETFs in 2025 with over $1 billion in assets under management (AUM) are all gold and silver mining ETFs. Gold itself has continued to build on its fantastic run-up in 2024, up over 17%.
Gold also reached a momentous milestone, eclipsing $3,000 per ounce for the first time ever. However, gold and silver mining funds are delivering the best performance.
Gold and silver miners tend to see their stocks move up or down with more volatility than the metals' price. This is because miners have operational leverage. When the price of gold or silver rises, so do their revenues.
However, the company's costs remain the same. This allows miners' profits to rise faster than the price of the metals. Although, the same is true when metal prices fall, making miners a riskier way to play gold and silver. Below are the details on these three funds. All return metrics use data as of the Mar 28 close.
SIL: +20% Return as Silver Shines
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Kicking off this list is the Global X Silver Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: SIL). Silver is also up more than 17% on the year, and this ETF has provided a very impressive total return of 24%. SIL contains 30 stocks that are active in the silver mining industry. Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM) and Pan American Silver (NYSE: PAAS) hold dominant weightings in this ETF of 25% and 15%, respectively. They have also been the biggest contributors to the return of the ETF. Together, the two names are responsible for over half of the 24% return, contributing nearly 13%.
This comes as Wheaton has notched a massive 37% total return on the year. This is despite the firm missing slightly versus estimates on its Mar. 13 earnings release. Wheaton actually produces much more gold than silver. This makes sense from a profitability standpoint, considering that an ounce of gold is worth over 90 times more than an ounce of silver. It also shows how many of these firms are active in both gold and silver mining.
GDXJ: Junior Miners, Big Returns
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Next up is the VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: GDXJ). The ETF has provided a total return of 33% in 2025. The 'junior' miners ETF comprises 87 smaller gold mining companies. These stocks generate, or have the potential to generate, 50% or more of their revenue from gold and silver mining.
These firms often focus heavily on the exploration phase of mining. This gives these companies significant upside potential. But, it also increases risk. Their exploration might not lead to finding metal deposits that are worth extracting, putting the company in deep financial trouble.
However, many of these companies are already producing at scale. The fund's largest holding, Alamos Gold (NYSE: AGI), posted record gold production in 2024 at 567,000 ounces. This, combined with rising gold prices, helped the company achieve record free cash flow of $272 million.
GDX: Gold Mining ETF King Notches the Top Return
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Last up is by far the most followed name in gold and silver mining ETFs, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: GDX). The fund has nearly $15 billion in AUM. For reference, GDXJ is the second largest ETF in this space, but has just $4.7 billion in AUM. GDX has provided a total return of over 34% in 2025.
The fund contains 56 gold mining stocks, including the "majors." These are the largest and most prominent names in gold mining, including companies like Newmont (NYSE: NEM). These companies often have mines around the world and trade less wildly than their smaller counterparts.
While these three ETFs have performed exceptionally to start off 2025, much of their future success will depend on where the price of gold and silver goes next. Despite gold reaching and surpassing the $3000 per ounce mark, it is possible that these metals could see their prices rise even more in 2025. Potential Federal Reserve rate cuts are one reason this could transpire.
Lower rates can make the United States a less attractive place for foreigners to invest, weakening demand for the dollar. Gold tends to rise as the dollar weakens. Currently, the CME FedWatch tool is forecasting nearly a 74% chance of three or more rate cuts in 2025. These cuts could be the impetus for gold to move higher.
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