SPDR® Gold Shares
SPDR Gold Shares tracks the price of physical gold bullion. This fund provides investors with a simple way to gain exposure to gold price movements globally.
See below how EuroFolio members build portfolios around GLD, and which ETFs they most commonly pair with it.
GLD most frequently appears alongside US equities, long-term Treasuries, and commodities, with typical allocations between 6% and 20%. In the top portfolios, it pairs with TLT or DTLA (long bonds) at 26-45%, broad US equity ETFs like CSPX, VTI, or VIGRX at 15-40%, and often with managed futures or commodity funds such as DBMF or PDBC at 8-14%. The diversification role is clearly as a hedge: portfolios with higher GLD weights (15-20%) show lower volatility (8.7-10.0%) and shallower drawdowns (8.8-20.0%) compared to those with minimal GLD, like Gold Hedge Matched at 1% GLD, which suffers 40.9% volatility and a 51.9% drawdown.
The community treats GLD as a crisis buffer and portfolio stabilizer, not a return driver. The best risk-adjusted strategies, like Global Barbell Portfolio (Sharpe 1.28) and Golden Ratio USA USD (Sharpe 0.88), use 15-16% GLD alongside long bonds and equities to cut drawdowns to single digits or low teens. Defensive portfolios like Cockroach Portfolio and Golden Butterfly allocate a flat 20% GLD, accepting moderate returns (7.9-8.6%) for very low volatility (8.7-9.5%). Even in aggressive or Sharia-compliant setups, GLD stays capped at 10-16%, while the only high-volatility user (Gold Hedge Matched) uses just 1% GLD, confirming it is never a core holding but a tactical hedge against equity and bond stress.
AI analysis of below portfolio data from our community only · Not investment advice · Sept 2026