Posted 5th October 2026

Gold vs Stocks Since 1971: What Actually Beat Inflation?

Gold News

In this episode of The Freedom Report, Rob Kientz, the precious metals analyst and show’s host, sets out to answer the headline by charting the major assets in real terms, meaning after inflation has been factored in, back to the year the US dollar left the gold standard.

Kientz’s conclusion is an uncomfortable one for most savers. Once inflation is stripped out, most of the assets people rely on have barely grown in value. Only one has done better than gold, and that is US technology, measured by the NASDAQ. Gold comes second: it held its purchasing power across the whole period, while the broad stock market and silver stood still in real terms.

The point Kientz builds towards is a caution, not a simple case for buying tech. The force that beat gold is also the force concentrating economic and social power into very few hands. His real question is what it took for tech to win, and what that means for where you keep your savings.

Why 1971 is the dividing line

Kientz begins his analysis from 1971, the year President Nixon ended the US dollar’s convertibility into gold, the arrangement under which foreign governments could exchange their dollars for US gold. From that point, the United States could print money and take on debt without backing the currency with gold reserves, which is why he treats 1971 as the start of the fiat (paper) currency era.

To compare assets fairly, Kientz measures returns after inflation, using two different gauges. The first is the official Consumer Price Index (CPI). The second is ShadowStats, an alternative inflation estimate from economist John Williams that applies the methods the government used in the 1980s and tends to produce higher inflation figures than today’s official CPI.

Kientz plots the results on a log scale, a chart where each step up the axis is a tenfold jump, so the comparison shows scale rather than raw price. His preferred lens is ShadowStats, an alternative gauge.

Gold since 1971: holding its purchasing power

In nominal terms, meaning the raw dollar price before inflation is stripped out, gold’s price has climbed enormously since 1971. Once Kientz discounts that climb for real inflation, the picture changes: on his ShadowStats measure, gold has broadly held its purchasing power rather than multiplied it.

For Kientz, holding purchasing power is exactly the point. Across 55 years, by his analysis, gold kept savers level with the true cost of living where most assets did not. Gold traded at about $4,183 an ounce on 2 October 2026.

Stocks since 1971: headline gains versus real returns

The broad stock market looks very different once you apply the same inflation adjustment. The S&P 500 and the Dow both post large nominal gains, but when you discount them by real (ShadowStats) inflation, they flatten out. The Dow, in Kientz’s words, has “gone exactly nowhere” in real terms over the period, and the S&P 500 flatlines too.

His conclusion is blunt: the broad market, and the retirement savings tied to it in 401ks, pensions and IRAs, have mostly kept pace with inflation rather than beaten it. Kientz argues that understated official inflation helps hide this, because CPI makes those returns look like real gains when, measured against the true cost of living, they are closer to standing still.

Why the NASDAQ pulled ahead

The exception is the NASDAQ. It has beaten gold on both inflation measures. Kientz qualifies that win twice over. First, it is recent: the NASDAQ only pulled clearly ahead after around 2010. Second, it is narrow. The gains come from a small group of mega-cap firms, the ones often called the Magnificent Seven, not from the whole index.

Kientz notes that the broad NASDAQ, roughly a thousand companies, earns less on its capital than that capital costs. The biggest returns sit with Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and a few peers. Once those firms dominate a category, they grow at almost no extra cost.

Kientz attributes the surge to a series of one-off boosts: the smartphone and app economy, the build-out of cloud computing, near-zero interest rates from 2010 to 2021 (which he estimates accounted for around 40% of the gains), the COVID lockdowns that forced daily life online, and now the spending wave around AI.

A warning about concentrated power

Kientz’s larger concern is what the win represents. The only thing that beat gold, he argues, is also the force concentrating economic and social power into a few companies.

Kientz reaches past the charts to make the point, citing President Eisenhower’s 1961 warning that public policy could itself become “the captive of a scientific-technological elite”, alongside writers such as Marshall McLuhan and Jacques Ellul on technology outgrowing human control.

For Kientz, the risk behind the chart is that this concentration is hard to check, and that it reaches into jobs, small business and eventually the systems people use to transact.

What this means if you own gold

Kientz’s own takeaway is that, in inflation-adjusted terms, gold beat everything except big tech, and that, unlike a tech stock, gold is a physical asset you own outright rather than a claim on a company or a system, framing gold as the lower-risk way to preserve purchasing power.

Kientz argues that silver has lagged gold because it is now heavily industrial, but reckons the supply and demand balance could let it outperform gold later.

If you are looking for the longer comparisons behind this episode, see our guides on gold versus stocks, the inflation-adjusted returns on gold and silver, and why gold is a good inflation hedge.

Frequently asked questions

Which asset has beaten inflation the most since 1971?

On Rob Kientz’s inflation-adjusted analysis, the NASDAQ, meaning US tech, but mostly since 2010 and concentrated in a few firms. Gold is the runner-up and the store of value that held its purchasing power. The S&P 500, the Dow and silver roughly stood still in real terms.

Has gold beaten inflation since 1971?

In Kientz’s analysis, gold has broadly held its purchasing power across the period, which is why he rates it the runner-up. It did not multiply wealth the way big tech did, but it kept pace with the true cost of living where the broad market did not.

Why does Kientz still prefer gold over tech stocks?

He holds gold as a physical asset outside the technology system, and is wary of concentrating more wealth and power in a handful of firms. He also argues gold is the lower-risk option for preserving purchasing power.

What does Kientz say about silver?

Silver has lagged gold, in his view, because it is now heavily industrial. He argues the supply and demand balance could let silver outperform gold at some point.

Does gold pay any income?

The metal itself does not. Holding allocated gold with Kinesis (KAU) can earn a debt-free yield, paid from a share of network transaction fees.

Sources

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in The Freedom Report by Robert Kientz do not purport to reflect the official policy or position of Kinesis. The Freedom Report series is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation, offering or recommendation of any security, commodity, derivative, investment management service or advisory service and is not commodity trading advice. This publication does not intend to provide investment advice, tax or legal advice on either a general or specific basis.

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