How much gold?
Independent research keeps arriving at the same answer, between 10% and 20% of a portfolio, and the world’s central banks have been buying gold at the fastest pace in over half a century.
How much gold should a portfolio hold? The research points to a band between 10% and 20%. Over the past decade, institutions with no particular affection for the metal have put the question through their models and arrived, independently, within that same range.
The world’s central banks have reached the same conclusion with their own reserves. They have been net buyers of gold for sixteen years running, and in each of the past three years they added more than 1,000 tonnes, roughly double their pace over the previous decade.1 That sustained buying, together with the rise in its price, has carried gold to 27% of total official global reserves at the end of 2025, ahead of US Treasuries at 22% and the euro at 15%, on European Central Bank estimates.2 The only real question left is how much belongs in yours.
Where the consensus sits
In 2020 the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank for central banks, published a working paper on exactly this question. Looking at reserve portfolios heavy in bonds, it found that gold improved diversification, with the optimal allocation rising as bond duration lengthened.3 A study by Van Vliet and Lohre placed the optimum close to 13% for a portfolio held over ten years.4 WisdomTree, running 20,000 simulations after the 60/40 portfolio’s poor year in 2022, found that 16% to 19% maximized risk adjusted performance.5
The annual In Gold We Trust report, an exhaustive survey of this literature, gathered these studies and ran its own analysis of US equities, bonds, and gold from 1970 to 2024. Its optimum fell between 14% and 18%.6 Even mainstream institutions have begun to move; Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer, Mike Wilson, now favours a 60/20/20 portfolio that places a fifth in gold and real assets.7
Run independently, by different methods and over different decades, the studies arrive at the same narrow band, roughly 10% to 20%.
Gold does double duty
One objection deserves a direct answer. Many thoughtful investors believe they are already diversified, and across asset classes, they are. They hold equities in every region, bonds of varying maturities, real estate, private credit, hedge funds, mortgages and other alternatives. Every one of these is a financial asset, and they all belong to one system. Owning more of them diversifies you within that system. As the world’s monetary metal, gold is a different kind of asset from any of these, and adding it is what completes the diversification. It does this slowly. Over a day or a week it may fall along with everything else; its steadying role shows over longer stretches, sometimes weeks, sometimes a few months. That is one of the two jobs gold performs. The other matters more, and it depends on where you keep it.
Gold held in your own name, in a private vault outside your jurisdiction, stands apart from the system the rest of your wealth relies on. It is no one’s liability, and it sits beyond the reach of any institution or authority. A small allocation therefore goes further than its size suggests, because it is the one part of your wealth that does not depend on that system. This is protection of a different kind, held outside the financial system altogether.
Zero is the one allocation the research rules out.
What is your allocation?
So what is the right allocation for you? Within that range, your own number depends on your comfort, and on how much of your wealth you are willing to expose to the digital currencies now taking shape.
If you already own gold, you are most of the way there. The next step is to hold it in the form that does both jobs, in your own name and outside the system, and settle on the percentage that fits.
If you own none, the first step matters most. For someone new to gold, that range can feel like a large leap, so many people begin smaller, at 5%, or even 3% if that feels easier, a toe in the water, and build up as their comfort grows and the reasons accumulate. The case for those reasons is set out across this site and on the home page. Zero is the one allocation the research rules out. The studies above are linked in the notes. The annual In Gold We Trust report is thorough and worth reading in full. If a link has gone dark, which happens, send me a note and I will forward a copy; I keep them all. If you would like to talk through where to start, or how to hold gold you already own, I am happy to do that, at no cost and at whatever pace suits you.
Footnotes
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Source: World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends, Full Year 2024. ↩
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Reserve shares at end-2025, at market prices. Source: European Central Bank, The International Role of the Euro (2026 edition); reported 3 June 2026 (https://english.news.cn/20260603/d5eae04a2b0841a4bfde361c5f322ded/c.html). ↩
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Source: Bank for International Settlements, “What share for gold?” (Working Paper 906, Zulaica, 2020). ↩
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Source: Pim van Vliet and Harald Lohre, “The Golden Rule of Investing” (2023). ↩
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Source: In Gold We Trust report (Incrementum), own analysis 1970 to 2024. ↩
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Source: Morgan Stanley CIO Mike Wilson’s 60/20/20 framework (October 2025). ↩