Best Real Asset ETFs

Real assets are tangible things that hold value on their own, as opposed to paper claims like a fixed-rate bond. The category spans commodities (oil, metals, crops), real estate, infrastructure (toll roads, pipelines, utilities, data centers), natural resources, gold, and, by extension, inflation-protected bonds whose value is explicitly tied to the price level. The shared thread is inflation-sensitivity: the income these assets throw off, and often their prices, tend to rise with inflation, through commodity prices, CPI-linked lease escalators in real estate, regulated rate increases at utilities, and the direct CPI adjustment built into TIPS.

That is why real assets are usually framed as an inflation-diversification sleeve. They tend to move differently from a standard stock-and-bond portfolio, so they can help when inflation surprises higher, which is exactly when traditional bonds tend to struggle. The honest caveat: this is a diversifier, not a sure thing. When inflation is falling, real assets can lag for years, and several of them carry real volatility of their own. Investors who hold them tend to size the sleeve modestly rather than make it a core position. None of that is a prediction about inflation or any fund's return.

The simplest way to add a real-asset sleeve in one ticker is a multi-asset real return fund. RLY (the SPDR SSGA Multi-Asset Real Return ETF) bundles several real-asset categories together: commodities, natural resource equities, real estate, infrastructure, and inflation-protected bonds, in a single fund at around 0.50%. The appeal is that you get diversified real-asset exposure without choosing and rebalancing across half a dozen sleeves yourself.

The trade-offs are cost and control. A multi-asset wrapper charges more than most single-sleeve funds, and you inherit the manager's mix rather than setting your own weights between, say, commodities and TIPS. For someone who wants real-asset exposure as one line item and is fine with a managed blend, a fund like RLY is a reasonable default; for someone who wants to control the dials, owning individual sleeves is the alternative. This is descriptive, not a recommendation.

These three sleeves are the equity-flavored side of real assets, so they behave more like stocks than gold or raw commodities do. GNR (the SPDR S&P Global Natural Resources ETF) holds global natural resource companies across energy, metals and mining, and agriculture at around 0.40%, giving commodity-linked exposure through operating businesses rather than futures. IGE (iShares North American Natural Resources) is a US-tilted alternative in the same theme.

For real estate, VNQ (the Vanguard Real Estate ETF) is the broad, low-cost standard at around 0.13%, holding US REITs across apartments, warehouses, data centers, and more, whose leases often carry inflation escalators. For infrastructure, IGF (iShares Global Infrastructure) covers global utilities, transport, and energy infrastructure at around 0.39%, while PAVE (Global X US Infrastructure Development) targets US companies that build infrastructure (construction, engineering, materials, heavy equipment) at around 0.47%. Because these are equity funds, they carry stock-market risk on top of their inflation-sensitivity, and rate-sensitive REITs in particular can fall when interest rates rise.

The more direct inflation linkages come from commodities, inflation-protected bonds, and gold. For broad commodities, PDBC (the Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF) gives diversified exposure to energy, metals, and agriculture at around 0.59% and, as its name says, avoids the K-1 tax form. DBC (the Invesco DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund) is a long-running alternative at around 0.85% but issues a K-1. Commodities have the most direct tie to rising prices, but they produce no income and can be very volatile.

Inflation-protected bonds are the lowest-volatility piece. TIP (iShares TIPS Bond) holds Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities at around 0.19%, and SCHP (Schwab US TIPS) does the same more cheaply at around 0.03%; both adjust principal with the Consumer Price Index, so their value is explicitly inflation-linked. Gold rounds out the sleeve as a classic diversifier: GLD (SPDR Gold Shares) holds physical bullion at around 0.40%, with cheaper options available. For a deeper look at the gold options specifically, see our best gold ETFs guide.

Costs are approximate expense ratios as of early 2026; verify the current figure on each issuer's site. Each row is a representative fund for its sub-type, not the only choice. RLY bundles real assets in one ticker; GNR, VNQ, IGF, PAVE, PDBC, DBC, TIP, SCHP, and GLD each cover a single sleeve, and they range from the very low-cost (SCHP and VNQ) to the pricier commodity wrappers. You can research any of these as an ETF against the rest of your portfolio.

The hard part of real assets is not picking a fund; it is deciding whether the sleeve belongs in your portfolio at all, how large it should be, and which mix of commodities, real estate, infrastructure, TIPS, and gold fits what you already own. A bundle like RLY answers it in one line; individual sleeves let you tune it. Either way, the decision depends on your existing holdings and what you are trying to do, which is where an AI assistant that can reason over your real portfolio is useful.

That is where Walnut fits. It connects your existing brokerage through SnapTrade so you can ask, in plain language through Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant, how a real-asset sleeve would diversify what you already hold, how much a fund like RLY, GNR, or VNQ moves with the rest of your portfolio, and how each sub-type is doing against the market. Walnut keeps your accounts read-only, so a real-asset position is only ever added when you place that order. As something that informs rather than advises, it sizes the question against your real holdings instead of recommending one, because Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Real asset ETFs come down to two choices. For one-ticker breadth, a multi-asset real return fund like RLY spreads across commodities, natural resources, real estate, infrastructure, and inflation-protected bonds at around 0.50%. For a single sleeve, GNR (natural resources), VNQ (real estate), IGF and PAVE (infrastructure), PDBC and DBC (commodities), TIP and SCHP (inflation-protected bonds), and GLD (gold) each cover one piece, with costs ranging from SCHP's roughly 0.03% to DBC's roughly 0.85%.

Whichever route, the framing is the same: real assets are an inflation-diversification sleeve, not a growth engine, and they can lag for years when inflation is falling, so they are usually sized modestly. Holdings, fees, and fund structures change; treat the specifics here as a starting point and confirm on each provider's site before deciding. For the full category map, see our best ETF in every category guide.