Nasdaq’s Just for Funds: Introducing the Sprott Active Gold & Silver Miners ETF (GBUG)

Steve Schoffstall recently joined Nasdaq’s Just for Funds to discuss the launch of the Sprott Active Gold & Silver Miners ETF (GBUG), the only actively managed ETF focusing on gold and silver mining companies. Given current market volatility, gold is demonstrating its value as a portfolio stabilizer, while investors may benefit from diversification and the flexibility of an active strategy to navigate the complexities of the mining sector.

For the latest standardized performance, please visit the individual website pages: GBUG. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Video Transcript

Danielle Rutsky: Sprott recently launched an active gold and silver miners ETF. What can you tell us about the strategy?

Steve Schoffstall: In February, we launched the Sprott Active Gold & Silver Miners ETF, ticker GBUG. It's the only active ETF to provide focused exposure to gold and silver mining companies, including miners, exploration development companies, streaming companies and royalty companies. We can also invest in other precious metals companies, but usually, that's less than 5% or 10% of the portfolio.

Danielle Rutsky: With Sprott's four decades of experience in mining and metals, how does that experience reflect in GBUG?

Steve Schoffstall: The company's underpinning is in the precious metals and mining space. The investment team on GBUG has over a century of collective experience and includes an economic geologist. They conduct over 200 management team meetings a year, up to 30 site visits, and go all around the globe to look at the different mining companies. They're looking to bring that experience back, and they'll meet with the management teams and understand their capabilities, capital needs and the company’s structure. They also have a proprietary model where they'll look at price sensitivity, costs, taxes, etc.

Danielle Rutsky: That's amazing and seems extra important with this market uncertainty causing market volatility. With that volatility, how should investors be thinking about gold specifically?

Steve Schoffstall: Gold in many cases is not only built as a long-term investment, but as we're seeing with the current volatility, it does have that insurance-type characteristics it brings to a portfolio. We see just year to date, how that's paid off. The S&P 500 is down about 15% year to date [as of  April 7, 2025]. Gold is up about 14%. When you look at gold miners, they're up an additional 10% over physical gold. So about 23%, 24% is what we're seeing from performance there.

Typically, in these very volatile times, like we've been experiencing since tariffs were announced, gold tends to sell off in the early stages as investors look to raise capital to meet margin calls and other such things. But gold typically rebounds much faster than the broader market and has the potential to run further, as we've seen throughout history. In periods like this, that's where we see gold paying its dividend.

Danielle Rutsky: Besides the amazing performance you're referring to, why might an investor want gold miners in their portfolio now?

Steve Schoffstall: There are a couple of things. One would be diversification. When you look at gold miners versus the S&P 500 and other broader asset classes, there's a low to moderate correlation, a negative correlation to the U.S. dollar, which is becoming increasingly important now. As we can see, governments are moving away from U.S. fixed income and the U.S. dollar. That diversification is quite important at the moment.

Danielle Rutsky: Is there a benefit to being active? What is the difference? Why might an investor want to be in an active strategy versus a passive or straight gold allocation?

Steve Schoffstall: We look at those as complementary strategies. Typically, we think of the physical gold component as the base of the portfolio for the gold allocation. From there, we see investors dial up and dial down the equity exposure. From there, you're left with active and passive. As we talked about the dispersion and the complexity of the underlying market, we think an active approach can make sense in many cases for some folks, particularly if investors are comfortable with the risk that active management comes along with. On the passive side, for investors who don't want to take on that active manager risk and are content just taking a broader-based approach, we also see that as having a role in a portfolio as well.

Danielle Rutsky: Amazing. Thank you. It was great to learn more.

Steve Schoffstall: Thanks for having me.