Gold enthusiasts — “gold bugs” — are always insisting you buy gold as an investment.

It isn’t.

One observer said that an ounce of gold will always buy you a pretty good suit, but not a custom one.

That seems about right.

In the last ten years gold has earned you nothing — with a lot of heart wrenching ups and downs.

At times of crisis gold seems to offer some way to store value, but you have to get your timing right which is not always easy. Being the last person to buy is a way to lose your money. There are always lots of speculators buying and selling it …or telling you to buy or sell it…usually it’s buy…because they think the sky is falling…or will. In effect they are forecasting the market and the world economy. Not an easy thing to do.

Gold mining stocks? Even worse as they have under-performed the S&P 500 now for the last 12-15 years.

Gold mutual funds? The same, but with management fees.

Gold earns nothing for you except by storing some value during hard times. Maybe. And only if you bought at the right time

Even worse, owning gold — or a gold fund — COSTS you money as it must be insured, stored, managed.

My father gave me 40 ounces of gold when I was twenty. I sold them 50 years later, when gold hit nearly $1900 an ounce. No regrets. It hasn’t seen that again price since.

And I already have a good suit.