At the rate the price of gold is rising, in 7 or 8 years, it might even reach the level it was at in 1980. Gold has been one of the worst investments in the last 30 years. Sure, you can segment out certain time periods when you would have made money if you were smart enough to buy at the low and sell at the high. But for the rest of us living in the real world, the return on gold doesn't come close to matching the major market indexes over the same time priod and the return is even worse than dismal when inflation and commissions are factored into the return.