Amee Shah Upadhyaya CFA, CA
- The FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals & Mining Index is up 86% YTD, beating the global equity benchmark by over 70%.
- Gold dominates the index (91.8% weighting), with Canada, the US, South Africa, and Australia leading country exposure.
- Precious metals ETFs are rebounding, seeing $1.4B inflows so far in H2 2025 after prior outflows, signaling renewed investor confidence.
After two straight years of underperformance, precious metals-related stocks are back with a vengeance so far in 2025, driven by rising geopolitical tensions and tariff uncertainties.
As at the end of August 2025, the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining Index was up 86% in the year to date, outperforming our flagship global equity benchmark, the FTSE Global All Cap Index, by over 70%.
Performance - Total Return (USD)
This performance reflects rapidly rising interest in precious metals-related stocks such as gold miners. Market participants are increasingly turning to this asset class to serve as a hedge against volatility, improve diversification or increase a portfolio’s resilience to inflation.
What’s in the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining index?
Here are the key characteristics of the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining index, with data as at end-August 2025.
- The index focuses on exposure to global players in the precious metals and mining industry
- By precious metals, gold mining dominates the index (with a 91.8% weighting), while exposure to platinum, other metals, diamonds and gemstones takes up the remainder of the index
- The index comprises 69 stocks, with a top 10 holdings concentration of 65%; however, as of the September 22, 2025 index review, the top 10 weights will come down to about 62% due to the inclusion of additional Canadian constituents, bringing the index constituent total to 92.
- By country, Canada accounts for nearly half of the index weight (48.7%), followed by the US (17%), South Africa (15%) and Australia (9%).
Country Breakdown
Performance rebounded in 2025
The FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining index underperformed its reference benchmark (the FTSE Global All Cap index) in 2023 and 2024, despite healthy gains from the gold price. In the year to end-August 2025, the performance of the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining index has rebounded strongly, with a total return in excess of 70% ahead of the reference benchmark.
| Calendar Year Total Returns USD (%) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index | YTD 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
| FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining Index | 85.72 | 8.25 | 3.31 | -12.23 | -5.65 | 27.22 | 48.13 | -9.6 | 10.57 | 58.2 |
| FTSE Global All Cap Index | 14.75 | 16.83 | 22.19 | -17.87 | 18.54 | 16.76 | 27.09 | -9.62 | 24.38 | 8.98 |
Source: FTSE Russell. Data as of August 29, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
Annualised Total Return (% USD)
As at end-August, the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining Index had delivered long-term outperformance against the global equity market, delivering a 10-year annualized return of 17.4%, compared to 11.4% for the broader index.
This performance comes with significant tracking difference: the performance of the FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals and Mining Index diverged from that of the FTSE Global All Cap Index by more than 10% (in absolute terms) in six of the nine years between 2016 and 2024.
This, of course, suggests that the index could deliver significant diversification benefits in a broader equity portfolio.
Precious metals and mining ETF landscape
As of August 2025, 16 US-domiciled precious metals ETFs held $35 billion in assets. After experiencing outflows of $2.3 billion in the first half of 2025, precious metals ETFs have seen inflows of $1.4 billion in the two months ended August 2025.[Note 1]
Time to revisit precious metals?
The dramatic recent rise in precious metals-related stock prices highlights the important role this asset class can play during periods of geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
The hedging qualities, diversification benefits and inflation resilience of these stocks may appeal to a broad range of market participants, including those seeking focused exposure to precious metals and mining companies and those looking at an asset allocation switch within a broader equity portfolio.
Sources
[1] Source: Morningstar Direct, data as of August 31, 2025. ©2025 Morningstar. All Rights Reserved. For institutional use only. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar and/or its content providers; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. | Back to Note 1
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