After years of quiet accumulation, 2025 was the year gold stepped loudly back into the financial conversation. The metal has not only broken through its historical highs but has achieved levels above $5,000 per Troy ounce, a psychological milestone. While macro crosscurrents have intensified, gold has delivered clarity in the form of performance.

But that clarity is now giving way to harder questions. For those who already hold gold, the recent run has been a validation. For those still on the sidelines, it may feel like they missed it. Yet the forward-looking investor should be less concerned with price history and more attuned to structural drivers. Gold's resurgence is not just about war, inflation, or monetary hedging in isolation, it's about confidence. Confidence in institutions, in fiat, in the sustainability of fiscal trajectories. In 2025, that confidence was showing cracks. Early 2026, at least so far, has been appearing similar.

This does not guarantee that gold's price will continue to surge. In fact, the case may evolve, from price appreciation to strategic role-playing. Gold as ballast. Gold as correlation disruptor. Gold as optionality in a regime where policy tools are exhausted, and volatility isn't transitory but structural. The return profile going forward may be less about beta and more about convexity¹ in a stressed system.

And if that's the case, it begs critical questions: what is the optimal way to express that exposure? Is it physical, futures-based, miner equities, royalty and streaming models, or something more novel, like tokenized gold or gold-integrated multi-asset strategies? In 2025, gold roared back into the portfolio construction conversation. But the debate has been shifting from "why gold" to "which gold, and how."

So let's consider some of the more popular choices:

• Do they take direct exposure to the metal itself, through vehicles like SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)², and position for stability and monetary debasement hedges?
• Or do they reach for equity-like upside via the shares of gold miners in the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX)³, which historically offer leveraged sensitivity to movements in the gold price, but come with operational risk and higher volatility?

Or, there is a third option that has entered the arena, capital efficient exposures that combine gold and gold miners into a single vehicle, such as the WisdomTree Efficient Gold Plus Gold Miners Strategy Fund (GDMN)⁴. These aim to deliver both the stability of the metal and the growth potential of the miners, while preserving portfolio capital to be deployed elsewhere.

Considering 2025, Gold put up an Historic Return

Looking at 2025, the S&P 500 Index was up 17.88%, and we can note that the experience to get there included a positive start to the year, a drawdown, and then a recovery. However, while this was happening, GLD appreciated approximately 60%, GDX appreciated 144.8% and GDMN appreciated 239.1%⁵.

As we begin 2026, these different ‘gold-sensitive' exposures may be attracting a different degree of interest because of these returns.

Figures 1a and 1b look at returns over different time periods and horizons. The longest available period goes back to the inception of GDMN, December 16, 2021, and many might be surprised by the fact that GLD outperformed the S&P 500 Index (25.9% per year vs. 11.6% per year) from December 16, 2021 to January 16, 2026.

Figure 1a: Gold-Sensitive Exposure Returnshave been Strong of Late

Figure 1b: Standardized Returns

Gold-Sensitive Strategies are Anchored back to Gold

As investors consider GDMN, GDX and GLD inside of the investment toolkit, a logical starting point regards ‘the price of gold.' Looking at GLD:

• The investment objective of SPDR® Gold Trust (the "Trust") is for SPDR® Gold Shares ("GLD") to reflect the performance of the price of gold bullion, less the Trust's expenses.

We can therefore go back over a number of years and use GLD's return to define calendar years in this way:

1. Certain years were characterized by GLD delivering a negative return, therefore a tougher period for gold.

2. Certain years were characterized by GLD delivering a positive return, therefore a stronger period for gold.

We already noted that many look at gold-mining equities as a way to create a more sensitive exposure to the price of gold, meaning a beta of greater than 1.0 relative to the price of gold could be expected⁶. If gold's price is positive, this could mean outperforming to the positive, but similarly if gold's price is negative, this could mean underperforming and losing more in these environments.

Figures 2a and 2b go back to 2014, grouping years where GLD delivered a negative return (there were 5) and years where GLD delivered a positive return (there were 7).

• GLD Positive: This happened in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024 and 2025. GDX delivered an average return of 41.9% in these periods, as compared to GLD at 23.1% and the S&P 500 Index at 21.8%.
• GLD Negative: This happened in 2014, 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2022. GDX delivered an average return of -12.9% during these periods, as compared to GLD at -3.8% and the S&P 500 Index at 4.3%.

GDMN was included in Figure 2a, but we could not include it in the averages because it only began live calculation on December 16, 2021.

We also add in the 2026 Year-to-Date period. While we don't know what the rest of the year may hold, when you see gold up more than 7% after a little more than three weeks and this coming after a full year return in 2025 of around 60%, it's clear we have experienced sustained gold price appreciation. Looking to GDX, it's notable that 2023 and 2024 were positive, but just above 10%. Now, we see a 2025 return above 144%. We don't know if gold miners will hold onto these gains as 2026 unfolds, but it is true that gold miners cannot shift their strategy based on short-term moves in the gold price. Now that we have 2023, 2024 2025, and the first weeks of 2026 where gold's price has appreciated, there is a logic to seeing gold miners making more positive moves.

Figure 2a: Calendar Year Returns and whether GLD was Positive or Negative

Figure 2b: Average Calendar Year Returns when GLD's Return was Positive or Negative

Sources: Morningstar, FactSet and WisdomTree, specifically data is from the PATH Fund Comparison Tool, accessed as of January 27, 2026, but showing returns for the period ended January 26, 2026 for the 2026 YTD period. NAV denotes total return performance at net asset value. Figure 2b only bases calculations on full calendar years, not 2026 YTD. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. For the most recent month-end and standardized performance, click the relevant ticker: GDMN, GDX, GLD.

Conclusion: Why are you Looking at Gold?

When investors turn to gold, what are they truly seeking? Is it a hedge against inflation, a store of value in times of uncertainty, a non-correlated asset for diversification, or a tactical trade on macro dynamics? The answer differs depending on the investor, and increasingly, so do the options available to express that view.

Gold bullion, gold-mining equities, and capital-efficient gold strategies each offer distinct exposures, return profiles, and risk characteristics. Some deliver purer alignment with the spot price of gold. Others introduce operational leverage, equity market sensitivity, or sophisticated overlays designed to improve capital efficiency.

As forward-looking returns remain unknowable, the core challenge becomes not predicting gold's next move, but selecting the right vehicle that best maps to the investor's objective. In the age of proliferation and portfolio customization, gold-sensitive investing is no longer a binary decision. It's a design problem. There is no universal answer, only better alignment between tools and goals.

Figure 3: Other Information

¹ Convexity in gold's return profile means its price responds non-linearly—often accelerating disproportionately—when macroeconomic stress or monetary instability crosses critical thresholds.

² The investment objective of SPDR® Gold Trust (the "Trust") is for SPDR® Gold Shares ("GLD") to reflect the performance of the price of gold bullion, less the Trust's expenses. It is the largest fund ranked by assets under management that provides exposure to movements in the price of physical gold.

³ VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX®) seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index (GDMNTR), which is intended to track the overall performance of companies involved in the gold mining industry. It is the largest fund ranked by assets under management that provides exposure to movements in the share prices of a group of gold mining companies.

⁴ The WisdomTree Efficient Gold Plus Gold Miners Strategy Fund seeks total return by investing in gold miners and gold futures contracts. The exposure is designed such that for each $100, $90 is exposed to equities of gold miners, $90 is exposed to gold futures contracts, and $10 is in U.S. treasury collateral.

⁵ Shown in Figure 1b as the Year-to-Date 2025 Return.

⁶ A beta of greater than 1.0 would imply larger magnitude moves relative to a benchmark, such as if a benchmark was up (or down) 1.0%, then an asset with a beta of greater than 1.0 would have historically tended to move up (or down) by more than 1.0%.