SPDR Gold Trust (GLD)
Published 2026-03-17 • by greyrabbitfinance
Thesis Summary
The author suggests using gold as a benchmark to measure real wealth and purchasing power, arguing that it is a more stable store of value than fiat currencies due to its limited supply and resistance to political manipulation.
Quantitative Overlay
Detailed Deep Dive
To understand real wealth, we need a benchmark that cannot be printed or politically manipulated.
For most of human history, that benchmark has been gold and silver.
Unlike fiat currencies, precious metals cannot be created with a keystroke. Their supply grows slowly and predictably, constrained by geology rather than policy.
> The global stock of gold typically increases by only about 1.5–2% per year, a rate that has remained remarkably stable across decades.
In a sound monetary system, this is roughly the only form of “inflation” that should naturally exist… the gradual expansion of money as new gold enters the system through mining.
Not the constantly shifting inflation numbers reported by central banks.
This makes precious metals uniquely suited to answer a simple but powerful question:
Are assets actually becoming more valuable… or is the currency used to price them becoming less valuable?
One of the simplest ways to see this effect is to measure financial assets not in dollars, but in gold.