Warren Buffett explains the investment value of gold and the difference between non-productive and productive assets. Smart investors build wealth by buying productive assets essential for investing success. Gold is not a productive asset.

Is gold a good investment?

Making Money With Investing Success, Lesson 12, answers the question, is gold a good investment? At the end of the lesson, links to related content help you learn more.

What you learn:

This lesson teaches an essential of investing success, the difference between productive and non-productive assets. For investing success, focus on buying productive assets to build your portfolio which can make you wealthy.

Gold bugs see magic money

Good investments grow; they produce. We need to plant good investment seeds in our portfolios. Those are our well researched producing positions. Then we carefully attend to and monitor our portfolio to keep it growing.

Gold produces nothing and investors need assets that produces so there is no need for gold in an investment portfolio. Without doubt for centuries the rarity of gold gaves it value as money. No technology existed or exists to disrupt that rarity by discovering and overproducing it. It does not evaporate, burn or radiate or poison the holder. Gold is malleable into coins, bars and bricks.

Economist John Maynard Keynes called gold a “barbarous relic” or artifact of the past. In our time of cashless transaction this now seems even more true. But in our digital time gold can not disappear in a click. Still, it is not an investment.

“Why do you call gold a lousy investment?” an investor asked. This investor suggested Gold was the only hedge against world and economic events. It could protect against inflation.

However, the best answer I know appeared in Warren Buffett's letter to shareholders in 2011. The key point he makes is buying productive assets is essential for investing success. Gold produces nothing.

The following quote from a Buffett letter is the best response I know. In it Warren Buffett explains the investment value of gold. Enjoy the read.

From Warren Buffett’s 2011 letter:

The following is from Berkshire's letter to shareholders. "Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce -- gold's price as I write this -- its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.” [Gold @ $1400 Sept. 3, 2013 but overall point remains valid.]

"Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?

[Inserted note: July 4, 2019 the price had rocketed to $1419.10 making the point that gold does not produce any investment return!]

Productive land grows wealth

"A century from now the 400 million acres of farmland will have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops -- and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever the currency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond."

"Our country's businesses will continue to efficiently deliver goods and services wanted by our citizens. Metaphorically, these commercial "cows" will live for centuries and give ever greater quantities of "milk" to boot. Their value will be determined not by the medium of exchange but rather by their capacity to deliver milk. Proceeds from the sale of the milk will compound for the owners of the cows, just as they did during the 20th century when the Dow increased from 66 to 11,497 (and paid loads of dividends as well).

"I believe that over any extended period of time this category of investing will prove to be the runaway winner… More important, it will be by far the safest."

Reading a newsletter article by Chad Tracy that quoted Warren Buffett letter, reminded me of this wisdom packed letter . Here is a link to it in the Aug 15, 2013 The Street Authority newsletter.

Key investing principal

As the article points out, productive assets generate enormous wealth. Gold is pretty and valuable but generates nothing. It just hurts your foot if you drop it or stumble over it.

That is key. To grow wealth, money needs to produce. Put it to productive use; do not let it sit as an expensive doorstop. That is an absolutely core investing principal. Don’t let the gold bug bite you.

What do you think of buying gold? Do you own any? Do you agree with how Warren Buffett explains the investment value of gold? My only gold holding is a 4 decade old band on my finger which is far more valuable to my heart than wallet. Let me know about your attitude towards gold.

Is gold a good investment - answered!

Knowing gold is an asset but not a productive one tells you gold can be store of value but not an investment. This teaches an essential fact of investing success, by learning the difference between productive and non-productive assets, you can open the door to investing success and wealth building. So buying productive assets is the key to building wealth.

Lesson takeaways,
Warren Buffett explains gold

Warren Buffett explains the investment value of gold and the difference between non-productive and productive assets. Smart investors build wealth by buying productive assets essential for investing success. Gold is not a productive asset.

• Warren Buffett explains the investment value of gold.
• Investors must buy productive assets.
• Gold bugs mistake the monetary value of gold as an investment.
• Gold value in 2011, $1750, in 2019 $1419. Gold does not produce.
• Productive farmland is a far better value than gold.
• Companies like cows produce and therefore have investment value.
• Gold remains a lousy investment.

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Avoid 6 investing sins Lesson 215.06

Investment impatience destroys wealth Lesson 215.07

3 Yeses or no investment Lesson 215.08

Investing can be fun, interesting and slow Lesson 215.09

Warren Buffett explains gold Lesson 215.10

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