Equatorial Countercurrent

Being bearish on gold is a lonely experience. Every time one expresses bearish sentiment on gold, one gets a lecture about "fundamentals" and "the chart".

In fact, there are a lot of erroneous ideas about gold floating around, even among experienced financial people. Chief among these is that you can somehow hold gold over the long term and expect it to be consistently profitable. "I just put gold away in my retirement account", people say. This is a fallacy, since gold is not a growth asset. Over the long term, while its nominal price changes, the value of gold is remarkably stable. An ounce of gold gets you the same amount of "stuff" today as it did 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and 400 years ago. This point is counterintuitive to many people, but it is true nonetheless.

The point is that gold cannot be held, only traded.