Is it time to buy gold ?

Written by 1 min read

Why this question and why now?

My views on investing in gold have been very clear, I am not a being fan of investing in gold. Although I am open to trade in and trade out

But being not a fan is one thing and understanding contradictory view points from experts who sit on the other side of fence is another and as investors when facts change we should change our mind.

Most returns in investing are cyclical as the below picture depicts

Motilal Oswal table of yearly returns for equity, debt, gold, cash and a balanced portfolio, 1990 to 2020, showing the top asset class changing year to year

image source - Motilal Oswal

Even within an asset class the winners keep changing

Vanguard chart of yearly sector returns, 2006 to 2016, ranked best to worst, showing Australian and global asset class winners in a seemingly random pattern

Image source - Vanguard Australia

Knowing above information, we know that timing can really improve one’s return. Many market participants would say time in market is more important than timing market. However there are small sub set of investors who have done well using rules to move in and out of asset classes

See below screen grab which shows results of timing and riding up cycles in stocks and gold

Video still of a laptop chart: $30 invested and rotated between stocks and gold becomes $15,000,000 at $1,350 gold

image source 

I think you should spend 15 mins to watch this full video from Mike Maloney to appreciate the concept

In what works on wall street Jim O’Shaughnessy points out that not challenging wisdom of market is a good idea

Book excerpt from What Works on Wall Street: a Taoist story of an old man who survives a waterfall by going with the water, likened to the market

As a stock market participant its worth keeping a tab on how other asset classes are doing and I recommend you add below Dow to Gold Ratio to your toolkit

Line chart of the Dow to gold ratio, 1990 to 2020, peaking above 40 around 2000, falling below 8 by 2011 and recovering to about 15

image source

How am I using this?

  • Even though I may not buy gold by using above chart, it helps me time my ETF purchases (Index)

  • Historically 10-20%+ draw down is a very favourable territory for ETF purchases

  • Fed monetary and fiscal policies will mean that we may not see ever historical lows of this ratio like 2008, so may be reset the expectation to get in at 15 and not 10 in above chart

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