The Gold ETF: The Same Metal, Without the MineThin moat
Barrick Mining (B) — moat facet
An investor can buy the identical exposure in a fund holding bars, with no Mali, no permits and no AISC -- which is why a miner must beat the metal to justify existing.
The most dangerous competitor Barrick faces does not mine anything. It is an exchange-traded fund that holds gold bars in a vault, charges a few tenths of a percent, and offers an investor exactly the exposure a gold miner is supposed to provide, with none of the ways a gold miner can go wrong.
In 2025 global gold ETF holdings grew 801.2 tonnes — the second strongest year on record, and a swing of more than 800 tonnes from the small outflow of the year before1. Bar and coin demand reached a twelve-year high. The value of total annual gold investment more than doubled.
Set that against what an investor takes on by buying Barrick instead: a Malian government that shut a Tier-One complex for close to a year, all-in sustaining costs guided to rise again in 2026, a security review that slowed Reko Diq, a joint-venture partner with a claim on the best assets, and the permanent obligation to replace every ounce sold. The fund has none of these. It also has no exploration upside, no operating leverage and no dividend, which is the entire case for owning the miner.
That case has to be made in numbers, and it currently is not being made comfortably: Barrick trades near twelve times earnings while gold sets records, which is the market saying it will pay for the metal and not much for the mining.
The number that settles it is total shareholder return against the gold price over five years. A miner that does not beat the bar has no reason to exist.
A fund holding bars offers the same commodity exposure with no Mali, no permitting, no AISC and no obligation to replace what it sold. The number that settles whether Barrick should exist is total shareholder return against the gold price over five years.
Source: World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends FY2025 ↗- ReportedGold ETF holdings grew 801.2t in 2025 against an outflow of 2.9t in 2024, the second strongest year on record, while bar and coin demand reached a 12-year high and total investment value more than doubled.World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q4 and Full Year 2025 — total gold demand including OTC exceeded 5,000t for the first time, worth an unprecedented US$555bn (+45%), with the LBMA gold price setting 53 new all-time highs during 2025; the annual average price was US$3,431.5/oz (+44%) and the Q4 average a record US$4,135.2/oz (+55%). Supply: mine production a record 3,671.6t (+1%), net producer hedging -73.6t, recycled gold 1,404.3t (+3%) — described as a relatively muted response to a 67% increase in the US dollar gold price — for total supply of 5,002.3t. Demand: jewellery fabrication 1,638.0t (-19%) and jewellery consumption 1,542.3t (-18%) with jewellery demand value up 18% to a record; bar and coin 1,374.1t (+16%), a 12-year high; ETFs and similar products +801.2t against -2.9t in 2024, the second strongest year on record; central banks and other institutions 863.3t against 1,092.4t, at the upper end of the expected range, historically elevated and geographically widespread but slowed from their recent pace — FY2025 · publ. 2026-01-29 · source ↗