[simon says what]

Here are some performance charts for reference. All charts are from bigcharts.com.

Since 1971 minus dividends, the return on Gold and the S&P 500 is virtually equal.

Gold v S&P 500 since 1971: Gold=Green S&P 500=Blue

In the past 5 years minus dividends, Gold has outperformed the major market indices by approximately 70 to 110%.

| gold=light green | Dow=light blue | S&P 500=dark blue | Nasdaq=dark green|

And the Unhedged Gold Miners Index has outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 500% the past 5 years.

Unhedged Gold Miners Index(HUI) vs. S&P 500 (5 years): HUI=Green S&P 500=Blue

Gold stocks are highly leveraged to the gold price. The unhedged gold miners index (light green) has outperformed the retail (dark blue), small cap (light blue), oil (dark green), financial 100 (pink), biotechnology (purple), and utility (red) indexes by 400-450% the past 5 years.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Great charts. Did you have to subscribe to get access to them?

[Jack Black]

Another way of interpreting that chart is that for 24 periods Gold returned more, sometimes a lot more, than the S&P 500, while for 4 periods the S&P returned more. Based on this reading Gold has been a significantly better investment most of the time period in question