If You’d Invested $1,000 In Gold 10 Years Ago, Here’s How Much You’d Have Now

The worth of gold has been hitting all-time highs for greater than a 12 months, and it looks as if its momentum received’t decelerate. However simply how good have gold’s returns been over time? 

Right here’s how a lot cash you’d have now in case you invested $1,000 in gold 10 years in the past, in addition to the common annual returns over a wide range of different intervals. However there’s multiple method to put money into gold — and in case you select a foul means to purchase it, you’ll be able to lose an enormous chunk of your positive factors. 

Right here’s how gold has carried out over time

Let’s get all the way down to the chilly laborious returns instantly, earlier than discussing what all of it means. The desk under reveals how a lot cash you’d have at this time in case you bought $1,000 in gold on the spot value on the time famous in every column. The desk additionally supplies the overall return, in addition to the compound common annual progress charge, which may also help make comparisons simpler.

How a lot you’ll have in case you invested $1,000 in gold at the moment…

Supply: USAGold.com as of July 9, 2025

For instance, in case you’d invested $1,000 in gold three years in the past, you’d now have almost $1,904. That interprets right into a 90.4 % whole return and a 23.9 % common annual return. Over the 10-year interval ending July 9, 2025, gold returned about 11.1 % per 12 months on common. 

However for some lengthy intervals, gold had low common annual returns. For instance, within the 5 years beginning July 9, 2010, gold misplaced greater than 1 % per 12 months on common (or about 4 % whole). Within the 10 years beginning July 9, 2010, gold returned simply above 4.0 % yearly on common. In different phrases, gold had a depressing decade from July 2010 to July 2020. 

So it’s essential to notice how gold’s latest large run, which started across the begin of 2024, is so key to the common annual return figures within the desk above. The beginning and ending factors could be large elements in how good or poor the returns look. So let’s take a look at the identical time intervals, however earlier than gold started its newest run, with returns within the desk under going to the top of 2023.

Supply: USAGold.com. Returns to Dec. 29, 2023

What have been fairly good common annual returns although mid-2025 instantly develop into middling returns for a lot of intervals. For instance, within the three years to the top of 2023, gold returned simply 2.9 % per 12 months, whereas within the 10-year and 15-year intervals to 2023 year-end, gold returned a good however much less spectacular 5.5 % and 5.8 % yearly on common, respectively.  

It’s additionally essential to notice that these are the returns that you’d have acquired in case you had been capable of purchase and promote on the spot value of gold, with none additional incremental prices, corresponding to storage or insurance coverage. However you could find yourself paying large charges in case you put money into gold the flawed means. 

None of this is applicable to the hottest beneficial cash, the place the worth drivers are shortage, although it could apply to the hottest gold bullion cash.

The worst method to put money into gold

The worst method to put money into gold is to purchase bodily bullion. The important thing purpose is that you simply’ll by no means be capable of transact on the spot value of gold. A vendor will all the time cost clients greater than the spot value to purchase gold and can all the time provide purchasers lower than the spot value to promote it. That’s how the gold vendor makes cash, and it’s simply how the enterprise works, as a result of the vendor wants a diffusion to make a revenue. That unfold has to come back from the consumers and sellers of the product.

Simply how a lot does this price you when it comes to whole returns? It’s monumental in even the most effective case. 

Utilizing the identical returns as the primary desk, let’s assume that you simply paid a 5 % premium when shopping for and bought at a 5 % low cost. Right here’s how a lot you’d have over the identical intervals.

For instance, in case you purchased gold a 12 months in the past after which bought it, you’d have a price of $1,270.45 after factoring within the unfold. You’d successfully lose $133.73 in worth to the unfold, turning what had been a 40.4 % acquire right into a 27 % acquire — costing mainly one-third of your acquire. 

Over a 10-year interval, you’ll have successfully misplaced $272.32 as a result of unfold, turning what had been a 185.9 % acquire right into a 158.7 % acquire. That unfold ate up almost 15 % of the overall revenue on the commerce. It’s an identical scenario with the 25-year interval, the place the distinction is greater than $1,112. Right here the unfold would price you greater than 10 % of your revenue. 

In even the most effective case, you wind up paying an enormous chunk of your revenue to the vendor. However you could find yourself paying even increased spreads in case you’re attempting to promote your gold shortly, you promote to a vendor with a excessive unfold or it happens throughout a time when sellers can enhance their unfold. Extremely, you’ll want gold to extend almost 10 % simply to interrupt even in your buy!

For these causes, shopping for gold bullion is a sucker’s wager on gold costs. Right here’s a greater possibility.

The easiest way to put money into gold

If you happen to’re trying to put money into bodily gold, a greater method to do it’s to purchase a gold exchange-traded fund (ETF). With a gold ETF that invests in bodily gold, you keep away from the worst parts of shopping for bodily bullion — storing and insuring it, the large spreads — whereas with the ability to purchase and promote it at honest market worth at any time the market is open.

After all, you’ll pay one thing for these benefits — particularly, the ETF’s expense ratio. The expense ratio is calculated as a share of your funding within the fund, and it’s deducted seamlessly from the fund for every day that you simply personal it. One of many greatest bodily gold funds is the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which fees a 0.4 % expense ratio. 

Let’s do a fast comparability between the returns on this fund and people of shopping for bullion your self over the previous 12 months.

As you’ll be able to see within the desk above, you’ll lose 0.4 % of your whole funding within the fund, which is calculated right here as a 0.4 % discount within the general worth at year-end for simplicity. In different phrases, with the ETF, you get to maintain almost 99% of your earnings, whereas by shopping for gold bullion, you’d want to surrender about one-third of your positive factors over this previous 12 months. 

Now, it’s not all peaches and cream with the ETF, both. Over time, the expense ratio will eat at your returns, too — within the case of the fund talked about above, 0.4 % per 12 months. However that beats the heck out of paying 5 % further on the purchase and shedding 5 % on the promote — successfully a few years’ price of the fund’s expense ratio — each time you need to transact. 

After all, there are different methods to wager on gold, together with futures, in addition to gold miners’ shares. However within the head-to-head matchup for investing in bodily bullion, shopping for gold by way of an ETF is so a lot better than shopping for the bullion your self and getting taken to the cleaners on the unfold. 

Backside line

Gold has lengthy been referred to as a retailer of worth, significantly in tougher financial occasions, however many buyers desire to put money into cash-generating investments. The legendary superinvestor Warren Buffett has lengthy advisable that buyers buy a low-cost index fund primarily based on the S&P 500 inventory index, which has a powerful document of returns over lengthy intervals.

Editorial Disclaimer: All buyers are suggested to conduct their very own unbiased analysis into funding methods earlier than investing determination. As well as, buyers are suggested that previous funding product efficiency isn’t any assure of future value appreciation.