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Gold is outperforming the Nasdaq 100 since the launch of ChatGPT

There’s a bull market in anti-humanity.

9/8/25 10:12AM

Gold is glittering.

The shiny metal, which drives no future cash flows and offers no yield, has now delivered a better price return than the Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of November 2022.

What does it mean that the so-called barbarous relic is doing so well — even better than the AI-driven tech-heavy index?

For some perspective, in April 2013, my old boss Joe Weisenthal (then at Business Insider) wrote about how it was “great news” that the price of gold was crashing.

Some excerpts:

“Investing in gold is a rejection of government money and finance. Money flowing into gold-related assets represents a belief that rocks (however shiny they are) are a better place to invest than human endeavors (like stocks).”

“You can see that even with the recent upturn in stocks, relative to gold, gold has crushed stocks since 2000.

Arguably, 2000 represented a peak in belief in the capabilities of humans. The internet inspired all kinds of crazy optimism about how humans would re-shape the world for the better. The ebullience spread beyond the net. There was, for example, optimism about new ways of transporting humans: Fuel cells! Segway!

Of course, the bubble crashed. Then we had 9/11. Then we had two wars. Then we had the housing implosion. Then we had the financial crisis. Then the horrible recession. Then the European crisis and the debt ceiling and everything else.

In other words, we had a series of a events that, for good reason, shook our faith in humanity. During this time, people thought about history on a large scale. And gold, having been used as a money for thousands of years, did pretty well, especially relative to stocks, which represent companies made up of humans.”

If you agree with Weisenthal’s mental model (I do!), that makes what we’re living through now all the more striking.

We have similar (if not more!) techno optimism that we did during the dot-com bubble, this time over AI, and it’s sent tech shares soaring.

Yet we have the outperformance of gold, which in my view is primarily a function of:

Concern that global fiscal and monetary policymakers are willing to allow inflation to run hotter than it has during the 30 years that preceded the pandemic (i.e. “The Great Moderation”);
A diversification away from US assets in favor of the shiny metal, on the margin, fueled by:
- The sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, and a desire by other countries to not potentially have reserves frozen in the same nature;
- Uncertainty around US policymaking as it pertains to trade, capital flows, and the independence of monetary policy.

Put these things together and there seems to be building distrust about macroeconomic policymaking coupled with an implicit disassociation between “technological progress” and “human progress” — which may be down to the fact that artificial intelligence is being billed as a labor-replacing technology (see: Salesforce).

Gold and tech ripping together, for these reasons, tells us we’re in the midst of a bull market in anti-humanity.

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks close lower, trimming steeper losses as oil retreats

Oil prices fell after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country is helping with US efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Nate Becker4h

Stocks get a jolt as Netanyahu says Israel is helping US efforts to open Strait of Hormuz

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press conference that his country is helping with US efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz, putting a jolt into stocks.

The S&P 500, which had been solidly negative for most of the day, turned slightly green after the remarks. The rebound lost a bit of steam shortly thereafter, but stocks still remained higher than they were before Netanyahu’s comments.

“Israel is helping, in its own way, in intel and other means, the American efforts to open the Strait of [Hormuz],” Netanyahu said, according to a video of the press conference.

Here are another few interesting headlines coming across from the presser, per Reuters:

*NETANYAHU: IRAN HAS NO CAPACITY TO ENRICH URANIUM OR MAKE BALLISTIC MISSILES AFTER 20 DAYS OF WAR

*NETANYAHU: CAN’T DO A REVOLUTION FROM THE AIR, THERE NEEDS TO BE A GROUND COMPONENT AS WELL

*NETANYAHU: ISRAEL ACTED ALONE AGAINST SOUTH PARS

*NETANYAHU: TRUMP ASKED US TO HOLD OFF ON FUTURE SUCH ATTACKS

And here’s how the market reacted instantly after his comments:

Stocks Slump as Energy Surge Fuels Inflation Fears: Markets Wrap

“Israel is helping, in its own way, in intel and other means, the American efforts to open the Strait of [Hormuz],” Netanyahu said, according to a video of the press conference.

Here are another few interesting headlines coming across from the presser, per Reuters:

*NETANYAHU: IRAN HAS NO CAPACITY TO ENRICH URANIUM OR MAKE BALLISTIC MISSILES AFTER 20 DAYS OF WAR

*NETANYAHU: CAN’T DO A REVOLUTION FROM THE AIR, THERE NEEDS TO BE A GROUND COMPONENT AS WELL

*NETANYAHU: ISRAEL ACTED ALONE AGAINST SOUTH PARS

*NETANYAHU: TRUMP ASKED US TO HOLD OFF ON FUTURE SUCH ATTACKS

And here’s how the market reacted instantly after his comments:

Matt Phillips6h

Gold tumbles as market sees Fed shifting toward inflation fighting

Gold and gold miners tumbled Thursday, as the rolling Iran war energy crisis revived worries about inflation and pushed the market to take additional rate cuts this year off the table.

Gold (SPDR Gold Shares ETF) futures dropped roughly 6% shortly after 12 p.m. ET, hammering share prices for miners Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan. Silver (iShares Silver Trust) futures were down nearly 9%.

The decline in precious metals came alongside another sharp rise in energy prices. US benchmark crude oil (United States Oil Fund LP) and natural gas prices both jumped more than 3% after major Iranian attacks on Qatari energy infrastructure. US retail gasoline prices tracked by the American Automobile Association hit $3.884, up 33% from the end of last month, when a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran ignited hostilities.

Normally, gold prices are seen as a hedge on inflation, which might suggest that they should rise alongside expectations for persistent price increases.

But the speed of the Iran war energy shock — which will add to inflationary pressures already visible in recent economic reports, such as this week’s Producer Price Index, and could become a political problem for the Trump administration — has nudged traders to change their their views on whether the Federal Reserve would be able to deliver the rate cuts widely expected just a few weeks ago.

Yields on shorter-maturity US Treasury notes shot higher Thursday, reflecting expectations for tighter monetary policy. And prices in the market for federal funds futures suggest traders no longer see the US central bank cutting interest rates this year at all. (Early this month, market pricing implied expectations for two more cuts this year.)

On Thursday, yields fell on longer-term US government securities, such as the US 30-year bond. That suggests the market thinks a Fed shift toward inflation fighting and away from rate cutting would likely result in some decline in growth and/or inflation, helping to explain the drop in precious metals prices, as there would be less of a need for inflation hedges in such a scenario.

Bond Traders No Longer Price In Any Chance of Fed Cut in 2026

Normally, gold prices are seen as a hedge on inflation, which might suggest that they should rise alongside expectations for persistent price increases.

J. Edward Moreno7h

Novo says FDA has approved high-dose Wegovy shot

The Food and Drug Administration approved Novo Nordisk’s high-dose Wegovy shot, the company announced on Thursday.

Wegovy HD, a once-weekly 7.2-milligram injection, helped patients lose 20.7% of their body weight after 72 weeks, putting it in line with Eli Lilly’s competitor drug, Zepbound. By comparison, Wegovy typically has a maximum dose of 2.4 milligrams, which resulted in 15% weight reduction over 68 weeks in trials.

Wegovy HD was the first drug to be approved through the FDA’s new priority voucher system. This comes as Novo, despite being early to the GLP-1 boom, has been outpaced in sales by Lilly. The company released a pill version of Wegovy in January, which has shown strong early uptake, though new competitor products are set to debut this year and next.

The stock is down about 1.6% for the day, but was down nearly 3% before the announcement.

Tasha Matsumoto

Crudely speaking

What we talk about when we talk about crude oil

While both WTI and Brent are light and sweet crude, differences in geography and chemical composition influence the Brent-WTI spread.

ODESSA, TEXAS - APRIL 27: Pump jacks working on the Permian Basin near Odessa