Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input.

Do precious metals and mining sector index funds grow as much as the general stock market?
Metals and Mining is an interesting special case for stocks.  It's relationship to U.S. equity (SPX) is particularly weak (~0.3 correlation) compared to most stocks so it doesn't behave like equity.  However, it is still stock and not a commodities index so it's relation to major metals (Gold for instance) is not that strong either (-0.6 correlation). Metals and Mining stocks have certainly underperformed the stock market in general over the past 25years 3% vs 9.8% (annualized) so this doesn't look particularly promising.  It did have a spectacularly good 8 year period ('99-'07) though 66% (annualized).  It's worth remembering that it is still stock.  If the market did not think it could make a reasonable profit on the stock the price would decrease until the market thought it could make the same profit as other equity (adjusted slightly for the risk).  So is it reasonable to expect that it would give the same return as other stock on average?  Yes.. -ish.  Though as has been shown in the past 25 years your actual result could vary wildly both positive and negative. (All numbers are from monthly over the last 25 years using VGPMX as a M&M proxy)