Gold Keeps Setting New Record Prices. So Where Are The Investors?
Gold is hitting records in more ways than one.
In nominal terms, the yellow metal set multiple new all-time highs last week, and today, the metal exceeded $3,400 an ounce for the first time ever. On an inflation-adjusted basis, gold also notched a new record price, surpassing the longstanding record set in 1980.
Inflation-adjusted gold at a new record high after 45 years
There could be further gains in the coming months, if analyst expectations come to fruition. Goldman Sachs sees gold topping out at $3,700 by the end of this year and $4,000 an ounce by mid-2026.
Gold miners, I'm happy to report, also appear to be back in favor. The IBD 50, Investor's Business Daily's flagship screen of growth stocks, now includes about a dozen gold mining names. Companies that were just added to the list include DRDGold, Eldorado Gold, Gold Fields, Randgold Resources, Osisko Gold Royalties, Royal Gold, Triple Flag Precious Metals and Wheaton Precious Metals.
We're proud to hold shares in 11 of these companies across one or more of our gold equity or resource funds, as of March 31. Below is a comprehensive list.
IBD 50 gold names we currently own
This gold rally is classic Fear Trade. It comes as investor sentiment has collapsed to its lowest level in three decades, according to April's BofA Global Fund Manager Survey. Eighty-two percent of participants said they believe the global economy will shrink, marking the most pessimistic reading in the survey's history.
The value of the U.S. dollar, when measured against a basket of world currencies, has sunk to a three-year low as traders await more details on the fallout from President Donald Trump's trade war. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index is down 8% so far in 2025, making this the worst start to a year in the index's four-decade history, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Granted, a weaker greenback has its advantages: It makes the price of goods being exported out of the U.S. more affordable to foreign buyers, helping exporters.
My concern is the reason for the dollar's decline. Foreign central banks have been dumping U.S. debt for a while, but the selling pressure of longer-dated bonds has increased in recent months. In the four months through February, overseas institutions sold a combined net of approximately $90 billion.
Despite the rally, retail investors are still sorely underexposed. Gold-backed ETF assets currently represent less than 2% of all ETF assets, down from approximately 8% in 2011. Investment in gold ETFs has significantly picked up since February, but holdings are still off by about 19% from their highs in October 2020.
Implied investor allocation to gold is relatively low
The market share for gold mining ETFs is even lower, representing less than 0.5% of total equity ETFs. That's a shame because gold stocks have been among the best bets of the year so far. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index, or GDM, has advanced roughly 50% through Thursday's close, far outperforming the S&P 500, which has lost close to 10% over the same period.
Believe it or not, the best-performing S&P 500 stock so far this year is Newmont, the world's largest gold mining company. Newmont is up a little over 50% through April 17, followed by CVS Health, up 47%.
Analysts have rosy expectations for Newmont's year ahead. Those polled by FactSet say they project profits to rise 13% to $3.92 per share this year, followed by an 8% rise to $4.23 per share next year.
This rally isn't limited to U.S.-based gold stocks. South African producers, as measured by the rand-priced FTSE/JSE Precious Metals and Mining Index, hit a new record high as the price of gold has exploded to the upside, crossing above R60,000 per ounce this month for the first time ever.
South African Gold Miners at a Record High
Many American depository receipts (ADRs) of South African producers have done exceptionally well so far in 2025, with Sibanye Stillwater up about 50%, AngloGold Ashanti and DRDGold both up 93% to 94%, and Harmony Gold up a remarkable 113%.
Just as investors' portfolios are underexposed to the yellow metal, gold mining stocks look incredibly undervalued relative to the market. The chart below shows the ratio between the GDM and the S&P 500. You can see that, relative to the S&P, gold stocks have traded in a range-bound pattern going back about 10 years.
Can gold miners finally break out of the range-bound trading pattern?
So how do mining stocks break out of this pattern? Either gold equities continue to trade up, or the S&P 500 continues to fall (or a combination of the two).
In any case, this could be a good buying opportunity. As always, I recommend a 10% weighting, with 5% in physical gold (bars, coins, jewelry) and the other 5% in high-quality gold stocks.
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