Gold reached an all time high price of $1911 per ounce on August 23, 2011, during the debt limit crisis. By election day 2012, gold had fallen to $1777 per ounce. That amount of gold sells, today, for just $1178.
The picture’s even worse for silver buyers—and worse still for the people who snapped up oil futures. Silver peaked at $48.70 per ounce on April 28, 2011. By Obama’s re-election it had plunged to $31. Today, an ounce of silver costs $15.7. A barrel of oil, which sold for $97 in November 2012, now sells for $59.
Anyone who invested in an index of stocks is doing far, far better than anyone who snapped up commodities and locked the bunker door. Since election day 2012, the S&P has risen from 1,428.39 to 2084. Let’s say you sold all your gold at the August 2011 high and put it in the S&P 500 until election day. You would have turned that 7 percent loss on gold into a 20.5 percent gain. With silver that 40% loss would have turned into a 5 percent gain.
If precious metals don’t seem like a bad idea yet, consider this. If you dropped a $10,000 bet on gold election day, you’d be left with $6,629 this Christmas.
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