Physical gold has outperformed gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with a 20% CAGR compared to 13.8%-14.07% returns from top ETFs over the last five years, Financial Express reported. In the last 10 years, gold's CAGR stood at 12%, while ETFs gave 10.02%-10.28% returns. Gold and gold ETFs returns over the last 15 years were at 11% CAGR and 9.54%-9.62%, respectively.