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4 Best Gold ETFs to Hedge Against Stock Volatility (July 2026)

Gold ETFs can help diversify your portfolio and hedge against down markets.

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Alana Benson is an editor who joined NerdWallet in 2019. Historically she has covered a wide variety of investing topics including stocks, socially responsible investing, cryptocurrency, mutual funds, HSAs and financial advice. She is also a frequent contributor to NerdWallet's "Smart Money" podcast. Alana has appeared on FOX Houston and the "PennyWise" podcast and has been quoted in MarketWatch and The Sun. Before joining NerdWallet, she wrote two books on identity theft and several young adult nonfiction titles. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, MSN, Yahoo Finance and MarketWatch.

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Gold's been on a wild 12-month ride, to say the least. While it's still up around 20% in the last year, in that period, it's risen as high as 60% at times, and fallen nearly 25% from those highs. In the last month, gold has hovered around $4,000 per ounce.

Below is our complete list of best-performing gold ETFs. We exclude gold exchange-traded notes and leveraged gold ETFs, which may come with added risk or fees.

Best-performing gold ETFs

» Want to add these to your portfolio? See our list of the best brokers for ETF investing. These investment platforms offer a strong selection of tools for building a diversified portfolio, and our list only includes brokers that don't charge commissions for ETF trades.

The best-performing gold ETF by one-year return is iShares Gold Trust Micro (IAUM), which is up 21.83%.

Ticker

Company

Performance (Year)

IAUM

iShares Gold Trust Micro

21.83%

GLDM

SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust

21.81%

FGDL

Franklin Responsibly Sourced Gold ETF

21.78%

AAAU

Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF

21.74%

Source: Finviz. Data is current as of July 15, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only.

What are gold ETFs?

Gold ETFs are exchange-traded funds that give investors exposure to gold without having to directly purchase, store and resell the precious metal. Some gold ETFs track the price of gold, while others invest in companies in the gold-mining industry.

As with other types of ETFs, the issuing company buys stock in gold-related companies or purchases and stores gold bullion itself. Investors buy shares in the fund, whose value rises and falls with the underlying gold price or company stock value.

» MORE: 4 more ways to invest in gold

How to invest in gold ETFs

Here’s how to buy shares in a gold ETF:

Step 1: Find a gold ETF

You can typically find gold ETFs by searching for them on your broker's website. (No broker? Here's how to open a brokerage account.)

Step 2: Analyze the ETF

It's important to research ETFs before buying, just as you'd research stocks. Two things to check before purchasing shares in a gold ETF:

Five-year returns. Most (but not all) gold ETFs are pegged to spot gold price, so returns should align with gold price moves.

Expense ratio. This is the ETF's annual fee, paid out of your investment in the fund. Look for a low one.

And two important notes: The average investor may want to exercise caution around  buying leveraged gold ETFs — these use financial derivatives and borrowed money to make bets on future price movements. Another asset to be cautious about is gold exchange-traded notes. ETNs are secured debt obligations that don’t actually own the underlying gold (unlike ETFs) and have a greater risk of credit default.

These investments are more for professional investors and generally not suitable for the buy-and-hold strategy favored by many retirement investors.

Step 3: Buy the gold ETF

You can buy ETFs through an online broker just like you’d buy a stock. One approach is to buy them regularly to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging. This strategy means contributing a fixed dollar amount on a set schedule.

» Ready to invest? See our list of the best brokers for ETF investing.

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