Crisis, war: which PEA eligible ETFs are essential to have when the markets are under stress?

Provided you choose carefully: not all of them keep their promises (we had already talked about the BX4 in an article on the crisis, which is not to be kept in the long term and will therefore not be discussed here), and some have availability constraints depending on your broker. Overview of good and bad ideas.

European defense, a sector that smiles at the crisis

Since the start of tensions in the Gulf, while global indices were faltering, European defense values ​​have soared. The continent’s rearmament, accelerated by the war in Ukraine and American injunctions for strategic autonomy, has largely benefited stocks like BAE Systems, Thales and Leonardo.

Only one ETF allows you to access it directly via a PEA: the BNP Paribas Easy Bloomberg Europe Defense UCITS ETF (ISIN: LU3047998896), launched in May 2025 on Euronext Paris. It tracks the Bloomberg Europe Defense Select Index, with a management fee of 0.18%. Its direct competitor, the Amundi STOXX Europe Defense ETF, is not eligible for the PEA; a common confusion to avoid.

Be careful in particular: if the sector is not very sensitive to classic economic cycles and structurally supported by European government budgets (which have committed to increases in military spending), this ETF is a bet on the duration of the current geopolitical context. A ceasefire could be brutal.

How to have gold on your PEA?

It’s the classic reflex in troubled times: buy gold. Except that, here you go, gold ETCs (like iShares Physical Gold or Amundi Physical Gold) are not eligible for PEA. The PEA is reserved for stocks and funds investing in stocks. Pure raw materials are therefore excluded.

There is, however, an imperfect workaround: iShares Diversified Commodity Swap UCITS ETF (ISIN: DE000A0H0728), the German version of which is eligible for PEA via synthetic replication. It tracks the Bloomberg Commodity Index and covers five families of commodities: energy (~30%), agriculture (~28%), precious metals including gold and silver (~18%), industrial metals (~17%) and livestock (~5%). Its management fees are 0.46%.

If we can note that, over one year, it had a very good performance of +36%, we must also remain clear-minded about the fact that exposure to gold is partial : around 14-15% of the index. Concretely, if gold rises by 10%, the ETF will not rise by 10%: the price also depends on oil, wheat, copper, soya.

If you want pure exposure to gold, there are two options outside of PEA: going through a CTO with an ETC backed by physical gold, or simply buying gold in coins or bars via specialized platforms.

Should you bet on short-term bonds?

Less spectacular, but very useful in active management: short-term bonds. On PEA, there isAmundi PEA Euro Court Term UCITS ETF (ISIN: FR0013346681, ticket: OBLI), designed to remunerate the liquidity of a PEA without removing it from the envelope. It follows the €STR rate, the Eurozone interbank overnight rate, with a fee of 0.25%. Over one year, it shows approximately +2.5%. The advantage: this ETF allows you to keep a certain remuneration while waiting to reinvest in more offensive positions when the markets stabilize.

But be careful: the yield mechanically follows the decisions of the ECB. If key rates fall, a not unlikely scenario in the coming quarters, yield will erode at the same time.

You just have to look at the performance over five years to understand: during the period of negative rates, the loss on this ETF was real (-10.65% over the last five years). So you have to stay up to date with current events.