Will the BlackRock World Mining Trust fund strike gold?

The BlackRock World Mining Trust looks like a compelling alternative to a pure play on gold explorers. Is it good enough?

Gold nugget or gold vein 'trapped' in quartz. Gold mining industry
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The rise in the gold price ought to be very good news for gold miners. In theory, every dollar on the gold price goes straight to profits as mining costs are fixed. Gold-mining shares used to be regarded as a leveraged play on the gold price, amplifying the rise in the metal. In practice, it hasn’t worked out like that. The gold price has risen over 20% this year and 32% over one year to around $2,500 an ounce. The price is 40% higher than the peak reached 12 years ago. Yet the FTSE Gold Mining index stands nearly 30% below the level reached in late 2011.

Is the BlackRock World Mining Trust a good buy?

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.