Gold
Gold funds invest in physical gold bullion. In fact, bullion coins are also popular among gold investors and the calculators model them just fine as well. However, gold miners are a completely different category and are not covered by this asset.
Characteristics
Individual asset behavior on normal rebalancing timeframes
Index Funds
Tickers are sorted by financial market and fund provider
| AUS | CAN | GER | JPN | UK | USA | |
| Vanguard | ||||||
| iShares | CGL | SGLN | IAU | |||
| SPDR | 1326 | GLD | ||||
| Xtrackers | XGLD | |||||
| Lyxor | ||||||
| ETFS | ZGOL |
Asset Color
Notes
Investors should note that the repeal of Bretton Woods in 1971 changed how gold is fundamentally priced. As a result, gold experienced a significant 3-year surge from 1972-1974 for reasons more complicated than normal market returns. So when studying portfolios with gold be sure to also look at the periods starting in 1975 and later.
There is a common misconception that gold was illegal to own in the US prior to 1975. While physical gold bullion was indeed prohibited for individual investors prior to 1975, the trade of gold certificates was legalized in 1964. Think of them as similar to how modern gold ETFs work where you don’t have the gold in your physical possession but do have legal ownership.
