And there have been long (10y) stretches where it's remained flat: it takes a lot of patience to HODL through something like that. Even if equities (e.g., holding an index fund) are flat at least you get some yield.
With a pure commodity play like gold (or BTC) your only way of returns in price appreciation.
My favorite LLM tells me that roughly 85% of the world’s gold is simply “lying around” in the sense of being held as jewelry, bars, coins, or reserves. In contrast, only about 15% of the gold is actively utilized in production or technological applications.
So I'd say it's the same as having cash under your pillow.
In nominal terms perhaps, but in inflation adjust terms it's roughly what it hit in 1980:
* https://www.investopedia.com/gold-price-history-highs-and-lo...
https://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/07/CMD_GLDNFLT0711_VF...
And there have been long (10y) stretches where it's remained flat: it takes a lot of patience to HODL through something like that. Even if equities (e.g., holding an index fund) are flat at least you get some yield.
With a pure commodity play like gold (or BTC) your only way of returns in price appreciation.