I added silver instead of switching. I also added platinum/palladium, but since sold platinum/palladium.
I’m trimming a bit now to pay off the margin debt.
Uranium has gone through the roof recently too. Too many opportunities to chase performance!
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I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the possible choices for adding some gold to my portfolio. At the moment, I’ve narrowed down on the physical gold ETF - WGLD due to the fact that it is part of the core selection on Degiro and offers the lowest TER = 0.12. But it seems that it is not following the same “curve“ as VZLD or AUUSI which are also gold trackers, no?
I don’t see a big difference in a chart beyond the TER. Are you checking a proper chart that plots all ETFs in the same currency? Some stock/fund comparison charts plot a nonsense Y axis when choosing titles that are listed in different currencies, unfortunately.
Looks like – just like AI – this gold bug topic is becoming a little stale, too.[Au]
TL;DR: I kind of liked El-Erian until you quoted him with these charts. I’d say: pick your time horizon (and pick your favorite denominator, for added fun) and you can come up with an open crocodile mouth for almost any pair of assets. Anyways …
Time to kick the hornets’ nest: Ben Carlson on “Why I Don’t Own Any Gold” (me neither).[$]
Au If gold wasn’t inert as an element we’d probably soon have stains on those gold bars owned by the gold bugs on this forum. Luckily, gold won’t react with anything chemically, but probably 99.99% of the gold owners would not notice anyway, since they hold gold via some abstract ticker symbol on some exchange versus physical ownership.
Same for similar belief systems (like crypto).
$ Ok, I own a Goldvreneli my grandparents gave me probably about 40 years ago or so, and a nugget the size of a rice corn from a (now tourist gold) mine in Australia that I bought on a vacation about 20 years ago or so.
They’re both somewhere in our household, I’d probably have to conduct a two hour search to surface them … (I hear the blockchain solves this).
I normally don’t like to own, gold, but at certain times I do. I bought and held gold/silver 2009-2011. And bought 2024-???
I think there’s a middle ground to be had between the swivel-eyed gold bugs and Warren Buffett. It’s an important asset class like stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities.
As we know, asset allocation is one of the primary factors determining returns. I think even as someone who doesn’t like to hold gold, there are times when it makes sense to do so.
Looking at the decade charts is quite interesting. It seems that gold outperforms in 2 situations:
- During inflationary periods such as the 70s
- During recessions or after a stock market bubble bursts e.g. post-2000 and post-2008
Currently the stock market is still booming and inflation isn’t as bad as the 70s, but there are clear risks that this could change.
Maybe the current gold boom is due to central bank buying (post Russian invasion) and the continuing loose financial conditions after the covid spigots were turned on.
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Everyone invests differently. Some believe real estate will grow forever. Some believe that AI companies will eventually make revenues which are not 10X lower than investments. Some believe US debt is not safe anymore and hence Gold might be better to hold.
people always find a theory after an asset explodes. Not many years back NVDA was commodity company.
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Don’t worry.
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I tend to look at it from a makro perspective. And there are multiple reasons why a shift away from financialized assets might make sense. There even is a Swiss company who prepares for disaster by investing in real assets outside the banking industry and apparently, they hold 40% of precious metals as a result of their thought process. https://realunit.ch/en/
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Slow topic, still.[$]
I’ll throw in some additional slowness.
(via Twitter)
$ Which is exactly what you want in investing!
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Well, it was quite an exciting day. After defying gravity for longer than expected, the day of reckoning came and it was a brutal day for gold stocks.
Off-topic: The good part - any lost bitcoin is a gift to all.
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Can’t say the same for gold. It’s still on earth, indestructible, and can be found again …
At least, there’s also only a finite amount of gold (on earth).
OTOH after a nuclear war that has wiped out the interwebs, gold remains indestructible while ₿ will be gone …
Gold will even stay around when the sun eventually – in about 5 billion years – evolves into a red giant engulfing the inner planets, including earth.
Only a black hole will be the end of gold.
BTW, sorry for having called the top.
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Gold will shine (or better radiate) forever. 
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Radiation of even the longest radiating 195Au isotope will be (half) gone after 186 days, though, so maybe for the half-year period after the nuclear war ends just carry your gold coin purse somewhere else than in your pant pockets (unless you’ve already had children).
I’m actually not sure whether even an H-bomb could create radioactive gold. Probably need a particle accelerator for that …
… thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole of exploring how to arrive at 195Au – this should keep me busy for the next hour or so. The AI engines will suffer a little bit, too (but without revenue from me), but since you can’t really trust AI, my physics brain will have to be involved, too. Uploading as we speak the corresponding brain sections from my dusty floppy disks (the flexible aka “floppy” 5.25" ones, for those who only know the floppy disk as the “save” symbol nowadays).
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Perhaps that‘s why gold tends to thrive when real interest rates are negative as well
Gold-198 was proposed as a material for creating a salted nuclear bomb. With a half life of about 3 days, it lasts long enough to kill everybody, but doesn’t hang around forever* like cobalt-60.
*long enough not to matter
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Ray Dalio on Gold
(summary by Perplexity):
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Gold is money, not just a metal. Dalio views gold as the most fundamental form of money throughout history, unlike fiat currencies which are debt and subject to devaluation by printing. Gold settles transactions without creating debt and serves as a good diversifier during financial crises and when trust in credit diminishes.
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Gold’s unique role in portfolios comes from its universal acceptance as a non-fiat currency-based storehold of wealth and medium of exchange. Unlike other metals or inflation-indexed bonds, gold doesn’t have credit or devaluation risk and acts as an “insurance policy” against economic distress or inflation.
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Dalio recommends strategic asset allocation of gold in portfolios at about 10-15%, regardless of price or timing. This allocation improves portfolio risk-return balance, especially due to gold’s historically negative correlation with stocks and bonds during downturns. Tactical timing bets on gold are discouraged.
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The rise of gold ETFs has increased liquidity but the main buying power still comes from physical holdings and central banks, which have begun to substitute gold for US Treasuries as the perceived most riskless asset amid rising debt risks. Gold’s limited supply also supports higher prices as demand grows.
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Dalio sees gold as safer and more enduring than cryptocurrencies or central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which lack gold’s long-term acceptance, security, and store of value qualities. While commodities remain subject to economic demand, gold stands apart as a store of wealth with unique monetary qualities.
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Finally some good news for B shareholders. These guys must be contenders for worst managed gold mining company.