4 Stocks To Buy As Precious Metals Soar – abrdn Physical Precious Metals Basket Shares ETF (ARCA:GLTR), VanEck Gold Miners ETF (ARCA:GDX)
The massive rally in gold hit its first significant pullback in months last week, dipping under $4,000 per troy ounce after touching as high as $4,350.
Other precious metals, like silver, platinum, and palladium, hinted that a pullback in gold may be on the way after they topped out on October 16th. But despite the recent stall, the rally in precious metals still has fundamental and technical catalysts behind it.
Geopolitical tensions always send investors to safe-haven assets like gold, and there appears to be no end in sight to the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza—not to mention trade tensions. Even this week’s US-China trade agreement seems to have underwhelmed the markets.
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Meanwhile, precious metals are becoming increasingly crucial to key industries such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and electronics.
The meme-like rally may be finished, but there’s no reason to suspect a bear market in metals is around the corner.
Owning precious metals in different investment vehicles requires due diligence, since tax rates and tracking errors can vary across assets. Make sure you choose investments that meet your goals, tax plans, and holding periods.
iShares Gold Trust
The iShares Gold Trust ETF (NYSE:IAU) may not have the asset base of the SPDR Gold Shares fund, but it’s still massive, with nearly $62 billion in assets under management (AUM). It has recently traded an average of 15 million shares daily. But the most valuable aspect of IAU is its 0.25% expense ratio, which is considerably lower than that of most large-cap precious metals funds that hold gold physically. The fund also recently celebrated its 20th birthday, making it one of the oldest and most recognized precious metals funds on major indices.
IAU closely tracks the spot price of gold, so its chart bears many of the same signals. The outsized rally in gold pushed IAU’s price above the 50-day simple moving average (SMA), which has served as strong support for most of 2025. But now that precious metals are correcting, the price of funds like IAU is again approaching the 50-day SMA support level. If the stock continues to decline toward the 50-day moving average, it could be a good buying opportunity for investors who missed the first leg of the rally.
Aberdeen Physical Precious Metals Basket Shares
This ETF holds physical metals in a vault like the iShares Gold Trust, but with a much more diverse set of holdings. The Aberdeen Physical Precious Metals ETF (NYSE:GLTR) holds gold, silver, platinum, and palladium in a London vault and only charges a 0.60% expense ratio for exposure to all four metals. The fund has $1.88 billion in AUM and has been trading since 2010 (and was sold to Aberdeen in 2018).
Despite a more diverse portfolio, GLTR shares have followed a similar path to IAU. The stock has enjoyed support strength at the 50-day SMA, a level it has held firm so far this year. The recent rally pushed the price more than one standard deviation above the 50-day, triggering an Overbought signal on the Relative Strength Index (RSI). Now that the rally has lost steam, the RSI has receded from the Overbought threshold and the stock price hovers near the 50-day SMA again. This could be a good spot to add to a position if you believe the precious metals rally is far from over.
Newmont Corp.
If you want exposure to gold without the tax implications of physical ownership, consider a large-cap miner like Newmont Corp. (NYSE:NEM), which has a market cap of $86 billion and annual sales of more than $18 billion. Newmont is now the largest gold miner in the world following its 2019 acquisition of Goldcorp and 2023 purchase of Newcrest, and it holds stakes in 11 mines across four continents. Why are there tax benefits for owning a gold miner stock over physically holding bullion? Holding physical gold counts as a collectible, which is taxed at a flat maximum rate of 28% rather than the more favorable 20% long-term capital gains rate.
Newmont is a consistent earnings winner with strong underlying fundamentals, but its chart suggests caution before jumping in. The long-term trend remains intact, with the 50-day SMA trading above the 200-day SMA, but the share price recently took out the 50-day SMA support level following a decline in precious metals spot prices. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator shows that momentum is falling off a cliff, which could make it tough for NEM shares to retake the 50-day SMA. Until the downward swing in the MACD can be halted, the stock will struggle to break back above its former support level. But if gold prices accelerate again, momentum here will pick up in a hurry.
VanEck Gold Miners ETF
Investing in gold miners is riskier than owning gold bullion because there are so many other factors that can disrupt the price of a gold mining stock that wouldn’t budge the spot price of gold. Large-cap miners like Newmont are established players with less volatile stocks, but still don’t always provide the level of comfort that physical holdings imbue. If you want to diversify your exposure to gold miners, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (NYSE:GDX) holds 46 stocks across a range of market caps, with no company representing more than 8% of total assets. The fund has $22 billion in AUM and charges an expense ratio of 0.51%.
The volatility of gold miners reared its head this week as trading became extremely choppy around the 50-day SMA, which once again had been acting as a support level. The fight between bulls and bears at this point will likely determine the direction of the next trend, but the RSI offers some support for the bulls. The trendline is now back to where it bottomed out in April, and downward momentum appears to be weakening. If gold resumes its upward march, GDX shares could race out ahead of the precious metals pack.
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