Dow Jones Industrials

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US Stocks reached their peak in 1999, and have clearly been in a bear market since 2001. From a high of 1400, they have fallen to the 280-290 level, a drop of 80%.

From 2003 through 2007, stocks appeared to perform well when priced in dollars, roughly doubling in value. Because virtually all of this gain was due to depreciation of the dollar, however, the gold price of the stocks actually declined slightly over the same period. During 2008 and early 2009, stocks gave up all of their gains since 2003 when measured in dollars. Priced in gold, they declined from about 800 grams to 220 grams, a 70% loss from 2003 levels.

Since the bottom in March of 2009, prices have risen strongly when measured in dollars, seen by many as proof that the recession is over and recovery has begun to take hold. Yet when priced in gold, we see that all of the "robust recovery" was the result of more dollar debasement, as trillions of dollars created by the Fed's "quantitative easing" and bailout programs flood into the market. In reality (aka priced in gold), stock prices have remained fairly flat from 2009 until July of 2011, when they began falling to levels well below their 2009 lows. Since then, they have been recovering, and in late 2017 are about where they were in late 2007.

DOW's Performance Since 1985


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DOW's Performance Since 1900


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DOW's Recent Performance:


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DOW ETF since 2002, showing performance in USD and gold, adjusted for dividends paid:


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Pings on Dow Jones Industrials

September 20, 2007
March 18, 2008
May 7, 2008
April 12, 2010
November 25, 2010
June 19, 2012
January 24, 2013
March 6, 2013

Comments on Dow Jones Industrials Leave a Comment

November 25, 2010

Andrew @ 7:19 am #

I would love to see the TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGE priced in gold

December 28, 2010

Andrew H. @ 3:53 am #

Hi, great site. Your charts are very interesting and helpful to get a better look at the big picture. One thought or question though… Is there a possibility, tool, service or something to apply some technical analysis indicators on your charts? I don't think they are available on yahoo, google, stockcharts or something like that. Any thoughts?
Thanx. Happy new year!

December 29, 2010
February 4, 2011

steve @ 12:19 am #

Great work with you gold valuation there. You present a completely different picture to the investor or anyone else interesting by the markets. Could please compare some of world's leading markets in gold please?

Andrew @ 2:26 pm #

Hello,

What's your take on the first 2 charts in this article?

Is it possible that the gold run might be coming to an end …. and the DOW starting a new bull market?

http://www.wellenreiter-invest.de/WellenreiterWoche/Wellenreiter100522.htm

February 9, 2011

Sid @ 4:34 pm #

Certainly a different perspective. I was thinking about luxury items – it'd be interesting to see if they actually increase in value.

How about something like a 1921 Dom Perignon in gold?

April 19, 2011

dave @ 5:03 pm #

I would love to see UK data priced in Gold, like housing, FTSE100 etc

June 23, 2011

Felipe @ 8:27 am #

@Sid:

Or maybe some Louis XIII?

September 26, 2011

Dave Doctor @ 12:34 pm #

Please show a chart comparing the price in gold to the price in dollars.

Dave Doctor @ 5:33 pm #

@editor:– Please explain "scaled".– I would expect a second y-axis for the USD line.- Did you intentionally leave off the "gold grams" from the primary y-axis?What is SMA?

April 3, 2012

Michael Hendricks @ 6:29 pm #

Over the last few months, the chart since 1900 has become one of my favorites. I review it often. Would it be possible to publish a single median price for the entire time span? multpl.com shows a similar number for P/E ratios for the same date range. Thanks.

April 4, 2012
April 5, 2012

Andrew @ 6:57 am #

Hello,

Could you show the NASDAQ and the RUSSELL 2000 priced in gold?

April 6, 2012

Michael Hendricks @ 7:54 am #

Excellent analysis of the S&P 500. I tried to comment on that article directly, but it looks like comments are disabled. Anyway, thank you for the average, median and PE10 calculations. They are all very informative.

May 15, 2012

Buddy Rojek, CPA @ 2:36 am #

Please price Gold in Wheat and Corn and Rice. At then end of the day we have to eat, and it will show what real value is.

If Gold is a store of value, then food is the ultimate store of value. Gold stores a lot of valu in a little weight, but it is manipulated by key p;ayers and hype. Grains are pretty stable and reflect normal demand. Apart from the agricultural revolution (increased supply- new food varieties like corn/maize and rice) fertiliser (incresed supply , population growth (Demand), we should see a stable price.

July 23, 2012

Edmund Contoski @ 10:59 am #

I would like permission to use your chart of the DOW's 14-year performance priced in gold in my forthcoming book The Impending Monetary Revolution, the Dollar and Gold. I would, of course, list your website as the source, which would be a promotional benefit to you.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I look forward to a response from you.

Ed Contoski
P.S. In appreciation, I would be glad to send you a complimentary copy of the book when it is published. Please give me a postal address to which I can send this.

September 12, 2012

Jack Reacher @ 7:51 am #

Looking at the chart from 1900, I wonder if it is about to reverse….

September 13, 2012

Joe R @ 1:42 pm #

So essentially, in the Fed era, the value of stocks in relation to gold have barely improved?

Makes me wonder if the strategy to go for is holding stocks until a sugar high is reached, and then dumping them into gold. Imagine anyone who got onto stocks in 1980, and gold in 2000; they made 13x their original investment in real terms!

October 16, 2012

Duncan @ 10:03 pm #

@editor:
Does the adjustment for the "DOW ETF since 2002, showing performance in USD and gold, adjusted for dividends paid" chart allow for the reinvestment of dividends back into the DOW? If so, that's a very compelling chart – all that compounded reinvestment still isn't enough to keep up with gold in the current environment…

October 17, 2012
February 19, 2013

Jarek @ 6:22 am #

I have always been comforted when historical financial data is presented to me graphically. However, in most cases I'm unable to interpret the data in any meaningful way. For example: I'm not sure what all those charts shown above are telling us. Do they indicate that the market currently is wildly overblown relative to gold, or maybe they're telling us that gold is wildly undervalued relative to the market? However, I do understand "flat" when I see it.

February 25, 2013
August 21, 2014

Andrew @ 2:14 pm #

As you might be aware, gold is actually NOT a perfect hedge against inflation (but is still better than just holding cash). Why not create another website that prices all these items adjusted for CPI (Actual Inflation)??

October 6, 2014
August 20, 2017

YYZ @ 7:42 pm #

Great site, thank you. While your Dow/gold chart since 1900 is well depicted, I think the one at macrotrends.com is only slightly better because it adjusts for inflation (also a log chart). Currently, adjusted for inflation the D/G ratio is slightly over 17. Equity prices are a even more stretched based on historical measures than depicted above. Thanks again for all the work done on this site to keep it current !!

January 1, 2018

GordyBing @ 6:30 pm #

Hi All,

How about a chart of the MSRP in dollars of a Jaguar convertible car? Nobody actually needs one, they require raw materials and labor at British rates. They have been manufactured more or less continuously for the last 70 years. Thanks for your time, take care.

January 2, 2018

Andrew @ 5:37 am #

How about pricing the following three things in gold:

1) Berkshire Hathaway stock
2) the Nasdaq
3) the Nasdaq 100 (I think it's ticker symbol is QQQ)

Thanks
Andrew

January 15, 2018
March 20, 2022

Mark @ 3:07 pm #

Can we have a logarithmic graph of the 100 year chart?

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