As investors look for investment options to potentially diversify portfolios in an extended bull market environment, consider a gold exchange traded fund to help smooth out bumps that could shake traditional stock and bond positions.
“Seek to mitigate episodic volatility due to policy uncertainty with an allocation to gold,” Michael Arone, Chief Investment Strategist US SPDR Business, and Matthew Bartolini, Head of SPDR Americas Research, said in a note.
“Consider an allocation to gold, which has a low historical correlation to stocks and bonds,” the strategists added.
With the U.S. equity markets hovering near record highs, the CBOE Volatility Index, a widely observed gauge of stock market fear, has remained well below its long-term average of 19.6 and even recently touched its lowest point in 23 years, reflecting an overly complacent stock market.
“This doesn’t mean it has been a low risk environment,” the State Street strategists said. “In fact, the political uncertainty and gridlock emanating throughout the market has led to a divergence between risk level sentiment measures.”