Here's a list of five reliable gold ETFs you can buy to combat sticky inflation or hedge a crash in the market. Beyond health and safety concerns, the pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions in the global supply chain and placed incredible constraints on the labor market. The governments and central banks of virtually all developed countries undertook massive fiscal stimulus measures that, in many cases, involved assuming huge amounts of public debt. Thankfully, economic collapse and a global recession were avoided, but the many shocks to commercial systems along with the monumental amount of money printing combined to create inflationary pressures that drove the prices of goods and services higher.