That depends. The Market Vectors RVE Hard Assets Producers ETF (HAP), which we own, is a Van Eck fund. Another Van Eck fund is the Global Hard Assets A (GHAAX). Despite the common fund family and use of the term "hard assets", there are major differences between HAP and GHAAX.
HAP is an passively managed ETF that tracks the RVEI index. The RVEI index reflects the performance of more than 300 companies engaged in the production and distribution of hard assets and related products and services. Six commodity sectors are represented: energy, agriculture, base and industrial metals, precious metals, forest products, and alternative resources.
GHAAX is an actively managed mutual fund that also invests in companies that produce and distribute hard assets. GHAAX has a higher expense ratio than HAP, not unexpected given it's active management. The energy sector accounts for 66% of GHAAX holdings. For HAP, energy sector exposure is 41%. GHAAX has a near zero exposure to agriculture while HAP has 31% of assets in this sector. Sixty nine percent of GHAAX holdings are US companies-- for HAP it's only 38%. To summarize, in key ways HAP is a more diversified fund than GHAAX.
As far as performance goes, GHAAX seems to have a considerable edge. I say "seems" because as noted in a previous entry, comparing the total return of an ETF with that of a mutual fund is not straightforward. Be that as it may, this post is just a reminder that labels like "hard asset" may in practice mean different things. Make sure to check it out.
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