Ray Dalio: Gold is the Safest Money

It seems to me indisputably true that gold is a money and it is the money that is least at risk of being devalued and/or confiscated.

Here’s why I believe that’s true.

Gold has been valued as money over thousands of years and in almost all countries, while all other monies have come and gone.

Here is how it has worked and still works.

Throughout history all monies (i.e., currencies) have been either:

1. “Linked/hard-asset-backed” currencies, meaning linked to gold or linked to something similarly limited in supply and globally valued, like silver. These currencies were government promises to allow people or governments to exchange their “paper” money for the gold (or for the other “hard” thing, like silver) at a fixed exchange rate, or
2. “Fiat” currencies, meaning currencies that are not linked/backed by anything, so they aren’t limited in supply.

Looking at history across countries, when there was gold-linked/backed money and too much debt (i.e., too many commitments to deliver the gold money) relative to the amount of gold money that existed, the monetary system broke down. This happened because the countries’ leaders either a) stuck to the commitment to back the money with gold, which led to debt defaults and deflationary depressions or b) broke their commitment to give the gold at the committed price, which allowed them to create a lot of money and credit, which typically devalued the money and led to higher inflation and higher gold prices.

Before the introduction of central banks (in 1913 in the US), the a) deflationary path was typically followed, but after central banks came into existence, the b) inflationary path was followed. In both cases, big debt/monetary breakdowns/crises followed and reduced debts relative to the incomes to service them, which fixed things at new, higher price levels. (This is why prices rose over time.) The most recent examples of the gold-linked/backed monetary system breakdowns were in 1933 and 1971.

We stopped having linked/backed monetary systems and went to fiat monetary systems in 1971. Because this is what we have now, the lessons from studying what happened with past fiat systems at times when there was too much debt relative to the amount of money that was needed to pay it are more relevant to what’s happening now. In such cases, central bankers always created a lot of money and credit, which typically led to higher inflation and higher gold prices.

In all these cases, gold did well as an alternative money to “paper debt money.” Over long periods of time, it was the money with the best track record of holding its purchasing power. This is why it is now the second-largest reserve currency held by central banks.

That doesn’t mean that other currencies were worse storeholds of wealth than gold over time. That is because “paper debt monies” provide interest, and gold does not. So, when interest rates were high relative to the rate of decline in the value of the paper debt monies, these paper debt monies gave a higher return.

The market-timing game, should one choose to play it (and I advise not to), is to hold the paper debt money when the interest rate is high enough to compensate for the default and devaluation risks of holding the money. But when the devaluation and default risks of the paper debt money are not adequately compensated for by the interest rate, it’s wise to hold gold.

Alternatively, one can choose not to try to time such movements and instead always hold some gold. Gold, like cash, has a had a low real return of about 1.2%, and it has been negatively correlated with cash. For that reason, one can think of gold and cash together as being good money to have for any type of environment in which liquidity is good to have.

Gold has also been a favored money because it has lower confiscation risks than other monies and other assets. That’s because it doesn’t depend on getting money from someone, and it’s tougher for someone or some government to take it from you. It is the toughest money to grab because it can be held in one’s own secure possession, unlike all other monies that require others to make payments of money to give them value. It can’t be stolen in cyberattacks. For this reason, gold has been the favored asset when there were big risks of money confiscations due to a) financial crises that led to very high taxes and other confiscatory policies and/or b) economic and monetary wars between countries (e.g., sanctions).

As a result, during times when there were monetary/debt crises and/or wars that increased the risks of confiscation, gold went up a lot in value (or, said more accurately, it was the money that didn’t fall in value). This is why gold has continued to be the most fundamental money over time, with the best track record of having its value keep pace with the cost of living over very long periods of time.

That’s how the debt/money/gold dynamic has worked and still works, which is especially noteworthy at times when there is a lot of debt relative to the amount of money needed to service the debt and when there are risks of confiscation.

Gold as an Investment

As an investment asset, I look at gold like I look at all other assets in putting together my portfolio, which is by looking at its expected returns, risks, correlations, and liquidity in relation to other assets to make a strategic asset allocation mix. Then I think about what tactical deviations I want to make from that mix based on what’s happening as it affects the markets. So, I see gold as part of one’s portfolio as having a certain amount of money that has certain characteristics, just like having a certain amount of cash has its characteristics.

This perspective is very different from how most people see gold, which is as a market that one might speculate in. Thinking about gold as a fundamental money has helped me a lot, so you might consider it. If you disagree with me about how I am thinking about it, please let me know so that we can try to work out what’s true so we deal with it well.

When I think about how much gold one should have in their portfolio, I view that as first and most importantly a strategic asset allocation rather than a tactical/market-timing decision. I think everyone’s starting point for investing should be to know and be in the portfolio that is best to have, independent of any tactical views of the markets. Any deviations from that portfolio should only take place if the investor believes that they have better abilities to market-time which investments are better than others. Most investors don’t have this ability, so they should just stick with their strategic asset allocation mix.

For this reason, when investors ask me if they should buy or sell gold based on whether I think it will go up or down, I tell them that that’s a tactical, secondary question because they should first start by asking themselves what amount of gold they should have in their strategic asset allocation. When I look at this in my own analysis, this is between 5% and 15% depending on what other assets are in the portfolio and the investor’s risk preferences.

As for tactically market-timing over- and underweighting gold in one’s portfolio, as explained, it should be overweighted at times of monetary system breakdowns and high risks of money confiscations and economic/monetary wars (e.g., sanctions) and underweighted at other times because, over long time frames, gold has been a relatively poorly performing asset (like cash) because it’s not a productive asset.

In any case, what I’m trying to get across is that you should think of gold as being a fundamental money that you should own at least some of. Most investors don’t own any.