The value of gold continues to rise. The precious metal has gained 15% this year to date and is up 38% over the last year. Investors often choose to leverage gains in precious metals by investing in shares of gold mining companies.

Gold miners generate profits by leveraging the price of gold, which is driven by the difference between production costs and the prices received when gold is sold. Here is a simplified example. A mining company has an all-in production cost of $2,000 per ounce. If gold is at $2,500, the company has a $ 500-per-ounce profit margin. If gold climbs to $3,000, the profit margin doubles to $1,000. 

Well, as of this writing gold comfortably trades above $3,000 per ounce.

The VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) is a popular investment vehicle for gold mining companies. GDX launched in 2006 and has about $15 billion in assets. Here are its top holdings:

GDX has posted a one-year return of 23.3% and is up 30.8% year-over-to-date. GDX has a dividend yield of less than one percent.

The YieldMax Gold Miners Option Income Strategy ETF (YGDX) utilizes a covered call options overlay to provide investment exposure to GDX and generate attractive dividends from the sale of call options. For this ETF, YieldMax uses a synthetic long position of buying GDX calls and selling to match the price changes of GDX. Option credit spreads are sold to generate cash flow to pay dividends.

GDXY pays monthly dividends and has a current distribution yield of 34.86%. The ETF launched on May 20, 2024. This year to date, the fund has returned 24.38%.

You can see in the strong market so far in 2025, GDXY has posted a great return but has slightly underperformed GDX. In a flatter market for gold mining stocks, the attractive yield from GDXY will likely prevail.