iShares Physical Gold ETC

Gold appears in every one of these top portfolios, but rarely as a dominant position. Allocations range from 5% up to 49%, with most sitting between 8% and 20%. The most common companions are global equity ETFs like VGWD, SPYI, and LGGE, typically at 20-47% combined, alongside tech-heavy funds such as QDVE and IE00B42N9S52. Bonds appear frequently but in smaller slices, with IEAA, EFRN, and STHY at 3-17%, while commodities like PDBC, DBMF, and KMLM show up in 3-10% allocations, especially in the tech-focused portfolios. Money market funds like C3M appear in the more conservative setups at 31-40%.

The pattern shows two distinct uses of PPFB. In growth-oriented portfolios like "Big Tech Max Sharpe" and "Tech Growth max Sharpe" by user-julfmc, gold at 20-27% acts as a stabilizer against tech volatility, paired with short hedges like PSQ and managed futures. In balanced strategies from user-xi07wn, gold ranges from 8% to 49%, with "arga test balanced" using it as the anchor at 49% alongside just 35% equities, achieving a 17.9% return with only 11.1% volatility. The "iso2vel" and "ISO2_DAVV" portfolios from user-4t5pxw take a more defensive stance, pairing 18% gold with 31-40% money market and 12-17% bonds for Sharpe ratios around 1.1 and drawdowns under 12%. Across all users, gold consistently serves as the primary diversifier, smoothing equity risk while preserving upside, with the exact weight scaling from 5% in equity-heavy builds to nearly half in gold-centric ones.