20 June 2013: Gold sinks below $1,300 after the Fed's taper talk
A day after Ben Bernanke said the Fed could begin slowing its bond purchases later that year, gold fell sharply on June 20, 2013, dropping below $1,300 an ounce for the first time in nearly three years. Stocks and bonds sold off too. The idea that easy money would keep fueling gold forever was being tested. Gold would not return to its 2011 peak for nearly a decade.
The lesson: Assets driven by policy expectations can reverse sharply when the policy outlook changes.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Gold (oz) at the start of 2015 → $3,500 today, vs $3,301 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2015, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 3.5 times the money, and $199 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Gold (oz) teaches: Gold pays no income, so its returns arrive in rare bursts separated by long droughts; it took almost three decades to regain its 1980 nominal high.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $1,200 | $3,500 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $1,300 | $3,231 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $1,520 | $2,763 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Gold (oz)? Every starting year and the full story →
More Gold (oz) history
- 21 January 1980: Gold spikes to $850 an ounce
- 17 March 1968: The gold pool collapses
- 5 April 1933: FDR orders Americans to hand in their gold
- 22 July 1944: Bretton Woods rebuilds the money system
- 15 August 1971: Nixon closes the gold window
- 24 September 1869: Black Friday: the great gold corner collapses
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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