Legend has it that billionaire investor Warren Buffet was the first to describe gold investment as a ‘pet rock.’
In other words, gold just sits there and doesn’t ‘yield’ in the way that a property investment yields rent, or shares yield dividends.
In 2020, MoneyWeek went even further saying it in fact costs you to own it. So why own gold when you could own a famous soft-drink company, say? Or another successful company that can compound over time? Why bet on a “pet rock” when you can bet on “American ingenuity”?
MoneyWeek went on to report that Buffet also once said, “gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or some place. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
So is gold in fact just a ‘pet rock’ and not an investment to consider?
Here’s a starting point to help you decide.
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- Warren adopted considerable number of pet rocks when he invested in his first gold mine in 2020
- Michael Burry, The Big Short predictor’s 2024 $8 million wager on gold, and
- Gold sitting at the top of this relative performance of investments chart since 2020.
