http://www.fool.com/investing/etf/2007/11/14/etf-teardown-the-best-gold-stocks.aspx

Dave Mock
November 14, 2007

Noted for their simplicity and other advantages over mutual funds, exchange-traded funds have become a popular investing tool. ETFs hold a collection of stocks that share certain elements in common, so if investors want to capitalize on the rising popularity of gold, for example, they can turn to Market Vectors Gold Miners, which invests in gold and silver mining stocks.

This ETF gives investors a broad diversity, but it also limits upside. For an investor who is bullish on the continued rise in gold prices and wants to avoid hedged miners, this ETF wouldn't fit the bill.

Fear not, Fool -- in this edition of "ETF Teardown," we'll use some nifty tools to drill into the best of what the gold sector has to offer. To help, we'll use Motley Fool CAPS, our tool for screening and ranking stocks and stock pickers.

The power of tags
To help investors quickly locate great stocks, any of the 5,200 rated stocks that have been profiled in CAPS can be "tagged" with a descriptor that groups the company with others sharing a certain quality.

Selecting the "Gold" tag in CAPS presents a list of 77 gold-related investments that trade on American exchanges. To get a sense of which companies the CAPS community thinks are the best opportunities in gold today -- and which they recommend staying away from -- we can sort this list by their CAPS star rank, denoted by one to five stars, with five being the best. Each of the individual companies can then be viewed for exactly who -- from Wall Street to Main Street -- is bullish or bearish on the company and why.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty
Here are a few of the stocks our screen pulled up today.

Company

CAPS Rank

Operations Located In:

Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC)

*****

Brazil, Canada, Chile, Russia, U.S.

Gold Fields (NYSE: GFI)

*****

Australia, Congo, Ghana, Peru, South Africa

Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX)

****

Africa, Australia, North America, South America

GoldCorp (NYSE: GG)

****

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, U.S.

Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM)

****

Australia, Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru

Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP)

****

Asia, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, North America

Crystallex International (AMEX: KRY)

***

Venezuela