Is Gold A Better Investment Than Stocks?
Is gold a better investment than stocks? Wendy asks, “I keep hearing ads advising us to sell our stocks and buy gold or silver. For an older investor, is this a valid point?”
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Is gold a better investment than stocks?
Gold is one of the ultimate fear assets. When things go haywire in the markets, people tend to turn to gold because it’s a tangible asset, and it has value everywhere.
We’re dealing with the possibility of hyperinflation. If that happens, gold could do very well. Another shutdown could increase the fear level of investors. Gold could also do well in that case. There are periods of time, like early 2020, where gold really shined.
Fact or Myth? Gold is safer than stocks
You have a gold bar locked in the safe. You paid $1,500 dollars for it. Unless you pay attention to gold prices, you know you have a gold bar and it has value. You may not know how much it’s worth, but it’s going to be worth something to somebody.
If you pulled it out earlier this year and thought to yourself, “I wonder how much this is worth?”, you discovered it was worth $2,000. Then, you put it back in the safe until next year. The next time you think about the bar, it could be worth $1,500. It could be worth $1,200.
Gold has extreme fluctuations in value, just like stocks. Let’s look at the last 13 years.
- 2013 -28%
- 2014 -2%
- 2015 -10%
- 2018 -2%.
Over the same timeframe, stocks were down
- 2008 -37%
- 2018 -4%.
Over 13 years, gold lost money four times, and stocks were down twice.
If you look at the last 48 calendar years, gold experienced declines 18 times. Stocks fell 11 times.
Gold is not a “safer asset” than stocks.
Is gold better than stocks?
Here is a link to a good article called, Gold’s Romantic Delusion. There’s a graph in that article which shows $10,000 invested in gold in 1980 versus $10,000 invested in stocks. On July 31 2020, the gold would have been worth about $36,000. Stocks would have been worth $761,000.
Source: Gold’s Romantic Delusion by Andrew Hallam. Click here for the full article
Is it a better asset than stocks for older clients, or any client for that matter? In our opinion, no. The numbers say the opposite. Gold isn’t a bad investment, but I wouldn’t own gold instead of stocks.
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About the Author
Neal Watson is a Certified Financial Planner™ Professional and a Financial Advisor with Fleming Watson Financial Advisors. He specializes in helping hard working, middle class families plan for retirement.