> gold has never reached its 1980s peak again, and may never do so
Very true. OTOH, if you bought gold one week, one month, six months, one year, five years, ten years or twenty years ago you would have made money.
I am not really a gold bug. It has a place, but it’s not the best asset ever. As others correctly point out, it is unproductive in itself. OTOH, if you have two uncorrelated assets, you can make money simply by rebalancing periodically between them. Not a lot of money, but not nothing.
Note too that cash itself is unproductive. Dollars ultimately derive their value from the fact that Americans have to pay their taxes in them, not because pieces of linen paper are useful for a lot.
> OTOH, if you bought gold one week, one month, six months, one year, five years, ten years or twenty years ago you would have made money.
Well, yes, but that's a rather unusual condition (the last time that would have been true would have been for a period in 2011, and before that for like a day or two in early 1980).
By contrast if you'd bought a broad index fund you'd have made a lot _more_ money (except for the one week example, due to Nvidia shitting the bed today). Like, a _lot_ more money.
> Note too that cash itself is unproductive.
Sure; approximately no-one will argue with you on that one. But cash isn't really the alternative to gold.
Very true. OTOH, if you bought gold one week, one month, six months, one year, five years, ten years or twenty years ago you would have made money.
I am not really a gold bug. It has a place, but it’s not the best asset ever. As others correctly point out, it is unproductive in itself. OTOH, if you have two uncorrelated assets, you can make money simply by rebalancing periodically between them. Not a lot of money, but not nothing.
Note too that cash itself is unproductive. Dollars ultimately derive their value from the fact that Americans have to pay their taxes in them, not because pieces of linen paper are useful for a lot.