Weekend Wars: DJIA vs. GOLD

I will keep it short and sweet this week, guys. Gold recently surged to an all-time high of $1,900 an ounce. No, this is not quite as high as the inflation adjusted $850/oz. of 1980, (~$2,400 in today's greenbacks) but it is pretty damn close. As with every inflating bubble, however, the pop has to come at some point and rather than speculate on when that will be I will ask the question which is on the minds of many... what about equities?

Check out the following chart demonstrating the price spread between the SPDR Gold Trust and the SPDR DJIA ETF which mimics the performance of the 30 stock index.

The price spread between the SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund that tracks bullion, and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF, a fund which mimics the performance of the 30 stocks in the index. The premium widened by the most since the fund for the precious metal was started in November 2004.

Gold surged to an all-time high above $1,900 an ounce last week, pushing the value of bullion to $9.1 trillion based on cumulative supply, or about 2.75 times the market capitalization of companies in the Dow index. Companies in the U.S. equities gauge have an average dividend yield of 2.7 percent and trade at 11.3 times estimated earnings as of Aug. 25.

Numbers would dictate that the Dow is currently a better buy even in a potentially inflationary environment over the next decade. What do you boys and girls say? Is it time to start gobbling up the Dow and let go of the gold? Or will you be holding on to that gold chain until pawn shops begin taking investment banks private?

9 Comments
 

Some days I wonder if it's all just the bandwagon effect kicking in. These things seem to happen a lot lately.

In 1976, James Hunt broke the sound barrier through Eau Rouge only to retire before the event finished... following the race he had sex with three Belgian nurses at the clubhouse near La Source.
 

For long term investors, all stocks have been BUY since the first inkling of the financial crisis, and will continue to be for the next year. Everything is more or less predictable until the 2012 election. After that, there's no way to know what the hell will happen.

Get busy living
 

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