Alpha Exchange cover image

Alpha Exchange

Campbel Harvey, Professor of Finance, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Mar 31, 2025
Campbel Harvey, a renowned Professor of Finance at Duke University and Partner at Research Affiliates, shares his insights on gold as an investment. He discusses his research on gold's performance compared to inflation, highlighting its volatility. Harvey explains the influence of ETFs and central banks on gold prices and the importance of entry price for investment returns. His work underscores gold's resilience during market downturns, making a case for its role in modern investment portfolios.
36:39

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Gold has outperformed inflation in the last two decades, yet its volatility challenges its reliability as a consistent inflation hedge.
  • The entry price of gold significantly influences future returns, requiring investors to be cautious during periods of substantial price rallies.

Deep dives

Gold as an Inflation Hedge

Gold has been viewed as an inflation hedge, but its volatility makes it an unreliable one. Over the past 20 years, gold has outperformed inflation, suggesting it has fulfilled this role during that period. However, its volatility is comparable to that of the S&P 500, making it difficult to use gold as a consistent hedge against inflation, which has much lower volatility. Historical data reveals that, at times, gold has underperformed inflation, emphasizing that while it can serve as a protective asset, it should not be solely relied upon for this purpose.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode