Regarless of what you think of Barrick, you can't deny that they do own some pretty good producing assets. So if the corporation were to be taken down by its toxic hedge book, you have to assume that the more valuable assets would be auctioned off, and that some of the successful bidders for these assets would be some of the other companies in XGD. That, I assume, would dampen some of the blow to the XGD stock price caused by an eventual demise of Barrick. So in the sense, there is a bit of an internal hedge within XGD itself.

The alternative, of course, is to hold XGD and short ABX in order to nullify its impact on XGD.