Gold is widely perceived as the best safe haven for your capital as the stock market goes through a bear market correction or crash. But is this really true? For gold to be a good hedge it would need to move in the opposite direction (have a negative correlation) to the broad market index, in this case, the S&P500.
Looking back 15 years we can see this is not the case for Gold (GLD) versus the market.
2005 to 2007 Gold out-performs the S&P500 with 52% gains compared to 25% for the S&P500 2007 to 2009 During the Financial Crisis, Gold provided a good safe haven for 7 months until it lost all of its gains. 2009 to Present The S&P 500 goes on a staggering bull run making 481% to January 2020 Gold makes 138% from 2009 to 2012 moving in correlation with the market, then suffers a serious crash wiping out 42% of its value. The crash and stagnation lasts 8 years. Gold is still 13% lower than its previous all-time high. My Observation 1. Gold might provide a very temporary solution as a safe haven during the early part of a stock market correction. 2. During the Credit Crisis, Gold should have been a perfect store of value because as it seemed the Fiat Currency system was failing gold would have been a great replacement currency along with silver. But that did not work out. 3. Gold is only a safe haven is people think it is. 4. Since the 2009 market bottom, Gold has increased by 65% and the SP500 232%
Would I use Gold as a safe haven? Personally no. Not based on this evidence. But in the short-term it may provide relief until people stop believing.
What is a good alternative? Holding cash and dollar-cost averaging into the market again as we near the bottom.
If you like this analysis, please like and follow so you dont miss future updates. Thanks for reading, Barry