The 79 Times

There is a time for everything under heaven. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to hold ‘em… a time to fold ‘em… a time to walk away, and a time to buy gold

Number 79 on the periodic table is remarkably heartless. The poor? Let them get jobs. The homeless? Let them sleep in hollow logs. Body bags in Gaza? That’s their problem.

Gold is indifferent to the sufferings of others. It is as callous as a torturer… as clueless as a Democrat. Does a man want you to refer to him as ‘they?’ Does an Afghani force his wife to wear a full-length cover…head to toe?

And why shouldn’t the Trump Team want to find a better place for Palestinians… or give preference to White South African refugees…even after eliminating the refugee program?

Eh…gold shrugs.

Are you getting richer? Poorer? Are stocks going up? Is Nvidia a ‘buy?’ Is it time to cash out your 401k?

Don’t bother asking gold. It doesn’t know…and it doesn’t care.

And yet…sometimes, gold glitters. This morning, for example. Markets Insider:

Gold hits record high after Trump threatens steel and aluminum tariffsCommodity prices climbed and related currencies softened against the dollar on Monday after President Donald Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum entering the US.

But that sparkle is not just an overnight thing.

Since January 2000, the Dow (a general measure of US stocks) is up 290%.

Oil has gone up too…from $29 a barrel to $71.

And bonds? They’ve just suffered their worst sell-off in history. The Wall Street Journal:

A Bond Selloff Is Rocking the World.

But gold has shined… from $282 an ounce in 2000, it now trades at nearly $2,900 – a gain of 900%, more than 3 times what you could get from stocks.

CBS News:

The remarkable, record-breaking price surge that gold experienced in 2024 continued this week as the price of the precious metal surged to $2,871.74 per ounce. That's up from the $2,700 mark gold surpassed last October and, overall, is up just under 40% from where it started in January 2024 when the metal was priced at $2,063.73 for the same amount. It's possible, if not likely, that gold could soon surpass the $3,000 price point should certain economic conditions become more pronounced.

Would you have been better off in Nvidia… or Tesla… or Bitcoin? But those are individual investments; you might have gotten lucky… or not. Take Facebook, for example. The stock was trading at $23 when Barron’s thought it was too expensive. ‘Stay away from the stock,’ it counseled its readers. Today, Facebook (now Meta) trades at $717. Who knew? Trying to pick the hot stocks is a losing proposition. There are few winners…and lots of losers.

It’s asset allocation, not stock selection, that makes the most difference for most investors. Being in the right place at the right time is what really matters. And among leading 21st century places — stocks, bonds, gold, commodities — nothing beat gold.

Which is a very odd thing. After all, not only does gold lack sympathy, empathy, and other kinds of pathy…it is also unproductive… and almost completely useless…except…as money.

What a strange thing.. How could an otherwise useless thing, with no pretensions to activity of any kind, beat a corporation, with all its smart people, patents, marketing machinery… innovations and capital -- a sophisticated complex, dynamic organization, intentionally set up to increase wealth?

Our take on it is this: there is progress…and backsliding. There is virtue…and sin, beauty and ugliness. There is profit…and loss. There is life…and death.

There is a time for everything under heaven. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to hold ‘em…a time to fold ‘em…a time to walk away, and a time to buy gold.