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Message:: [QUOTE="-jeffB, post: 5728515, member: 27832"]At the level of big market makers, it's easy to take one's stock and sell it for other currencies, too. No, I'm assuming that nine times out of ten you pick the worst POSSIBLE stocks, and you get lucky only 10% of the time. In reality, you might not pick Apple or Amazon or Tesla -- but you also wouldn't pick nearly so many dogs and ride them into the ground. Apple's return over 20 years has been 37% per year -- but, again, we only guessed right with 10% of our initial stake. If you'd put that $2750 into a fund paying 9% per year, it would only be worth a bit over $15K now, a bit less than the gold. But. BUT. Gold in early 2001 was at its lowest price in the last 40+ years, and today it's only 10% off of its all-time historic high (in nominal dollars). That's a prime example of picking your window. If you'd bought gold in 1981, you would've spent all of 2001 under water, with a 20-year return that was negative in nominal dollars, and much worse in actual purchasing power. I do agree that gold is a good hedge in small quantities, though. I wouldn't be completely surprised if it loses half its current value (in nominal dollars) at some point in the future, but I would be surprised if it lost 90%, or went to zero. I'd be less surprised if Apple itself went to zero.[/QUOTE]