Mark Hulbert, Wall Street Journal, has a nice piece on gold, here…
He quotes the excellent Campbell Harvey:
”Gold is only a good inflation hedge over time frames far longer than any of our investment horizons, according to research conducted by Duke University professor Campbell Harvey and Claude Erb, a former commodities portfolio manager at TCW Group. They found that it’s only when measured over very long periods—a century or more—that gold has done a relatively good job maintaining its purchasing power. Over shorter periods its real, or inflation-adjusted, price fluctuates no less than that of any other asset.
Gold’s weakness as an inflation hedge may be even more pronounced today, Prof. Harvey says, because “gold is currently very expensive compared to its history.” The current gold-to-CPI ratio stands at 6.5, for example, nearly double its 50-year average of 3.6.“
Leave a Reply