Gold prices tend to spike when investors fear that disaster is imminent.
So owning physical gold often sounds like a great insurance policy in theory. However, physical gold can be difficult to transport and expensive to store.
That's why some people like the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which attempts to reflect the performance of the price of gold minus expenses.
Yet the yellow metal's ETF hasn't paid off lately. It's the worst-performing ETF on this list, falling 6% over the past five years.
Related: 25% of physical gold buyers are crazy, metals exec says
