Is Gold Really A Good Hedge?

I think we've done some research here. If anyone's interested in our research, let me know. It's about performance when the market is down.

What we looked at is, yes, you can compare it to the S&P, but I wanted to see how GLD or even Bitcoin perform on down days in the market. Actually, GLD is a pretty decent hedge. It's never perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect hedge, but it tends to do really well when the market is down.

So, I liked its behavior as a hedge, and that's why I'm thinking someone would want to own GLD or IAU. Even though, yes, it doesn't have the strongest absolute performance relative to GDX, I like it when I need it. This is why I think GLD is such an attractive option, or one of the other two.

It's kind of a tie. If I just had to have another split decision, I'll probably just pick IAU because it's a cheaper option. They're both going to behave exactly the same. You might as well just pick the cheaper of the two. I like it when you need it, and this is where I think the actual gold spot steps up in its role as a portfolio hedge.

My late grandma said, "It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it." That sounds to me like the good advice that Aan just gave.