1.  At the depths of the depression in 1929, an ounce of gold sold for $20. The Dow Industrials was at 40. An ounce of gold today is roughly $1,300. It has increased 65 times over. But the Dow Industrials stands at about 15,000. That’s 375 times more than it was in 1929. And that means since 1930, the Dow has outperformed gold 5.8 times over.
 
2. In 1980, gold sold for $850 an ounce. The Dow Industrials was at 824.6. Since then, gold has increased 1.5 times over, and the Dow 18 times. 

3. In 1980, the average price of a single-family home in the U.S. was $68,700. Today it’s $223,222. It’s increased 3.3 times over (despite the real estate crash five years ago). Gold’s up just over 50 percent since then.

4. On the flip side of the coin, since the year 2000, gold’s gained more than 400 percent. But the Dow Industrials are up a meager 29 percent.

So you see, overall, gold is not as great an inflation hedge as most would like to believe. The fact of the matter is this: First, there are times when gold is a great inflation hedge, and there are times when it is not. Second, there are times when gold goes up, and there are times when gold goes down, just like any other market or asset class. Therefore, to maximize your profits in gold, you need to know when to be aggressively in gold, and when not to.