(David Gray/Getty Images)

bar none

Gold is shiny, alluring, and mostly pointless — it’s also crushed the stock market as an investment

Gold is hitting new highs as traders seek safe haven assets.

6/16/25 9:12AM

Anyone who has followed the market for any length of time will be unsurprised that gold — that shiny, malleable metal that humans have been obsessed with for millennia — has risen over the last week. When markets get skittish, investors seek out safe havens, and the escalating violence in Israel and Iran has been no exception, with the price of an ounce of gold coming close to its all-time high of $3,500 on Friday, up 3% in the last week and 8% over the last month.

But if gold offers some downside protection against war, economic risks, or even just more mundane threats like inflation, it stands to reason that over a longer time frame, it will have lost ground to the innovation machine that is the American stock market.

The paradox of gold, then, is that it has also crushed the US stock market over the last 25 years — a period of remarkable innovation and growth — rising more than 1,000% since 2000.

The S&P 500 Index has risen only 312% over the same time frame. Even adding dividends into the calculation doesn’t help stocks catch up, with the S&P 500’s total return coming in at only ~550% over the last 25 years.

This comparison is helped by the fact that the early 2000s happened to be a horrible period for stocks. But even more recently, gold has shone: it beat stocks last year, and is beating them again this year.

So, why is gold doing so well? It’s not soaring demand for shiny gold jewelry.

The fact that real interest rates have been low for much of that period explains a lot — you’re not “missing out” on holding a lump of gold if the alternative, like parking your cash in Treasurys or a bank account, isn’t very attractive. Most importantly, though, gold seems to have strengthened its identity as a safe store of value thanks in no small part to the crises of the age: the market turmoil of the dot-com crash, the global financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic and ensuing inflation — and, perhaps most critically, Russia’s war against Ukraine and subsequent sanctions, which caused some unease about holding US dollar assets in reserve compared to the shiny metal.

What doesn’t kill you makes gold stronger, I guess.

Luke Kawa

33m

Beyond Meat tumbles as CEO blames American society for its business struggles after issuing weak sales outlook

The CEO equivalent of flipping over the table when board game night isn’t going well.

Max Knoblauch & David Crowther & Luke Kawa16h

Nike craters after issuing weak revenue guidance

Sportswear kingpin Nike is tumbling on Wednesday morning after saying it doesn’t expect to grow sales this year.

On its fiscal Q3 earnings call, management said that revenue is expected to drop 2% to 4% in the current quarter, and that overall they “expect revenues to be down low-single-digits versus the prior year, with gains in North America offset by declines in Greater China.” That's a disappointment to analysts, who were anticipating 2% growth in Q4, and even more in the latter stages of the year, per Bloomberg.

Nike’s Q3 sales in China — where the company earns about 15% of its revenue — fell 7% to $1.62 billion. The company had issued weak guidance for this quarter considering continued softness in the region. That’s its seventh straight quarter of sales declines in the market. While this quarter’s was decline was less than feared, management warned that more pain is in the offing.

Nike’s turnaround effort “is complex work, and parts of it are taking longer than I'd like,” said CEO Elliott Hill.

Nike’s fiscal Q3 results (the three months ended February) were solid at the headline level:

Earnings of $0.35 per share, comfortably above the Wall Street consensus of $0.29 per share compiled by FactSet.
$11.28 billion in total revenue, roughly in line with the $11.26 billion estimate.

But the gloomy sales outlook has Wall Street analysts souring on the stock:

JPMorgan downgraded the shares to “neutral” from “overweight” and cut its price target to $52 from $86.
Citi reduced its target price to $53 from $65,
Stifel lowered its price target to $56 from $65,
Truist reduced its price target to $57 from $69, and
Barclays cut its target price to $67 from $73.

Nike shares are trading near decade lows this month, as tariffs continue to weigh on profits and shipping costs rise amid the war with Iran. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was down 17% year to date.

Luke Kawa, Tasha Matsumoto

17h

Stocks end worst quarter since 2022 with best day since May

Optimism that the end of the war may be near sent stocks surging.

Max Knoblauch18h

Oil-sensitive travel stocks pop following Iran state media reporting on potential war resolution

Travel stocks are surging on Tuesday as oil prices fall following reports from Iranian state media that President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country has “the necessary will to end this war,” but would only do so with guarantees that “prevent the recurrence of aggression.”

The war has sent oil prices and refining margins surging this month, causing airlines and cruise lines to cut profit forecasts despite reported high demand.

Following Tuesday’s update, shares of the big four US airlines (Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines) all climbed, along with smaller rivals including JetBlue. US airlines have stopped fuel hedging in recent years, increasing their exposure to upward swings in oil prices.

Cruise stocks also rallied, with Carnival and Norwegian up more than 6% and Royal Caribbean up about 5%.

J. Edward Moreno21h

The FDA is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, the NYT reports

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, allowing the experimental, often injectable substances to be sold by compounding pharmacies, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The potential move was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, and teased by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in late February.

Peptides have boomed in popularity recently, with search interest for “peptides” surpassing “ozempic” this month. Many of them are currently understudied and not approved for human use, a rule consumers are able to bypass by purchasing them from suppliers that sell them for, ostensibly, research purposes only.

As reports of the FDA changing its stance of peptides mount, consumer health companies like Hims & Hers and Superpower have been getting ready to roll out their peptide offerings as soon as they get the FDA's blessing.

Gold is shiny, alluring, and mostly pointless — it’s also crushed the stock market as an investment

More Markets

Nike craters after issuing weak revenue guidance

Oil-sensitive travel stocks pop following Iran state media reporting on potential war resolution

The FDA is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, the NYT reports

The peptide gold rush: How impending deregulation could supercharge a shadow industry

Latest Stories