As a stock market simpleton.... ELI5...
What should average Americans do to safeguard their 401k and money with everything going on...
As a stock market simpleton.... ELI5...
What should average Americans do to safeguard their 401k and money with everything going on...
I wouldn't change anything. I know people who thought trump would make the stock market unstable and they cashed in their 401k to buy physical gold and it ended up being a horrible decision.
Looking at the past 3 year chart the price of gold had a steady increase of ~40% over the first 2.5 years, and remained pretty steady the past 6 months. The "people you know" must have bought within that time period. This suggests at worst they have not made anything, and at best they have made ~16% per year (much better than the 3-8% of an average 401k).
Having said that, some big changes are likely to happen in the near future which will increase the value of precious metals, regardless of who is really in charge of what. Even if that is not true, gold is not likely to become substantially devalued in the short or long term.
There is no data or projection that matches your claim.
You're probably right and I'm misremembering. They may have just sat on cash for a while before buying gold index.