Bitcoin vs Gold $GLD Isn’t The Comparison People Think It Is, Just Look at The S&P 500 (VOO) To See Why

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 28, 1:06PM EDT

Key Points

Bitcoin has shown strong correlation with equities, particularly the S&P 500 (NYSE: VOO), undermining its narrative as a safe-haven asset during market volatility.
Gold exposure can be achieved through physical holdings, royalty firms like Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM), or ETFs like SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEARCA: GLD)

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Bitcoin vs Gold $GLD Isn’t The Comparison People Think It Is, Just Look at The S&P 500 (VOO) To See Why — © 24/7 Wall St

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Doug McIntyre: Lee, Bitcoin was supposed to be, I think sort of like gold.

[00:00:11] Doug McIntyre: If the stock had a problem, Bitcoin was a, good stabilizing investment to have. You had to own a little Bitcoin, you should own a little gold hedges against market collapses. Now what I’ve noticed is that if you look at a Bitcoin chart and you look at a stock market chart, they aren’t all that different.

[00:00:32] Doug McIntyre: So no, they’re very close. Yeah. So is there something I didn’t understand about Bitcoin?

[00:00:39] Lee Jackson: Now, well, there, there may be. There’s a million things I don’t understand about it. What I do know is that. If the Bitcoin had a huge run over the last two years going from like, 2023 or so, low of 20,000, 25,000.

[00:00:57] Lee Jackson: It went up to like 105,000. But just like you said, Doug, if you look at s and p chart and you look at a Bitcoin chart, they’re gonna look eerily the same ’cause it dropped from over a hundred thousand down into the low eighties. Okay, well that’s, I can do the math pretty easy. That’s a 20% plus correction, which is right in line with the stock market.

[00:01:19] Lee Jackson: So it makes you ask the question, well, what happened to its gold? Like quality to be an asset that’s, somewhat a safe haven.

[00:01:29] Doug McIntyre: I would not be buying Bitcoin, as a safe haven. I mean, if you’re gonna buy Bitcoin, buy it because you know it’s gonna be the world’s next major Transactional, concurrency, exactly.

[00:01:42] Doug McIntyre: Currency. But for those of you who are buying Bitcoin as a hedge, look at the chart. Okay? Don’t, listen to us, what we have to say. Do what Lee said. Just go take a chart for the last 60 days, the s and p and Bitcoin and see if they look like each other much.

[00:02:01] Lee Jackson: They look very similar. Right, right. Which also, leads us to the point that there’s so much transactional trading in Bitcoin that’s algo-driven or driven by money managers and they’re, again, they’re always trying to pick up nickels in front of a steam rollers on these kind of trades. But yeah, I mean that people aren’t doing the old buy and hold on an asset that goes up 500% in a couple of years. So it’s certainly not your safe haven.

[00:02:37] Lee Jackson: I mean, you’re better off owning just dollars or owning gold,

[00:02:42] Doug McIntyre: Look, look, look, I, we’ve said this before, but for those of you who are, say, I have to have a safe haven. Get gold. I’m not saying this ’cause I get a bribe ’cause gold can’t, somebody can bribe you at a company, but gold can’t bribe you.

[00:02:58] Doug McIntyre: The gold, there is no such thing as gold. A human. It’s just a metal. And gold has a multi century position as a safe haven. Absolutely. You don’t have to take our word for it. It’s gone on forever and there’s a bunch of ways you can own gold. Some people want physical gold. I can’t quite understand why, but as there are a lot of people who keep gold either in a bank safe or if they’re not safe at home.

[00:03:30] Doug McIntyre: Absolutely. But you can get an ETF, I mean, just go to your, Brokerage account, online brokerage account.

[00:03:39] Lee Jackson: Is it GLD?

[00:03:40] Lee Jackson: Yeah, it’s the spider’s gold, trust. And it is simple. GLD on the New York Stock Exchange. And all they own is gold. They literally buy spot gold and they have physical, they physically own it.

[00:03:54] Lee Jackson: They just own old gold contracts or futures contracts. They actually own the gold and. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that’s a good way to own it. It doesn’t pay a dividend where a lot of the gold miners do pay dividends, but it’s a good way if you actually wanna own, physical gold. So yeah, GLD is your play.

[00:04:18] Doug McIntyre: So anyway, the lesson that we have right now is. Bitcoin is not a true safe haven. it’s been proven now for sure. Yeah. I think we’ve seen that proven now, but gold is, there’s a good reason to have some gold in your portfolio, particularly if you’re over 50.

[00:04:35] Lee Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. And again, if, the GLD doesn’t seem right or some of the big miners like Newmont (NYSE: NEM | NEM Price Prediction) and some of those other.

[00:04:43] Lee Jackson: The companies that have been around for 40, 50, 60 years, they pay a decent dividend, two and a half, 3%. So that’s another way to look at it is look at the miners and or you can look at royalty companies like Wheaton, which literally buy the gold, the physical gold, Wheaton, and companies like that, or royalty companies will buy the physical gold and then they in turn sell it.

[00:05:07] Lee Jackson: So they’re like a conduit for the miners and gold producing, stocks. But yeah, anybody that thought, buying Bitcoin was buying them some sort of hedge for their portfolio, that ain’t the case. And like Doug said, if you don’t think that’s the actual truth, go look at the s and p 500 chart in the Bitcoin chart.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.