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Welcome to Investing Insights. I'm your host, Ivana Hampton. Investing Insights is helping investors navigate market volatility. Morningstar strategies and authors will deliver timely insights,

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Investors are piling into global gold ETFs for a safe haven from uncertainty. Demand surged

in the first half of 2025, according to a new report from the

World Gold Council. The industry trade group points to geopolitical turmoil, global trade policies,

and higher gold prices for driving interest in these ETFs. The lure of investing in gold ETFs can vary from wanting to diversify

a portfolio, hedge against inflation risk, or simply bet on rising prices. Brian Armour is here to

explain what you should know about this speculative asset. He's the director of ETF and

Passo Strategy's Research for North America and Morningstar

Research Services. Good to see you, Brian. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start off with our

intro question. What are gold ETFs? How many types are there and how do they work? Yeah,

so there's a couple different types, the most common of which are

physically backed gold ETFs. So those would be trust that actually hold gold. And then those obviously

would move in price directly with the price of gold. And then there's gold minor ETFs, which are

companies that mine gold and produce gold themselves.

And so those tend to be more like leverage plays, but their actual underlying companies,

there's other dynamics there than just purely the price of gold.

Now, the World Gold Council says that there was strong demand for global gold ETFs in the first half of 2025.

How much money flowed into and out of these ETFs?

And what's your take?

Yeah.

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