Gold Is Up 65% YTD, But Howard Marks Says The Case For Owning It Can Be ‘Superstition,’ Not Intrinsic Value

• Marks called gold a “lackluster investment” despite the yellow metal’s bull run in 2025.
• So far in 2025, the S&P 500 has gained 16%, while spot gold prices have risen 65%. 
• Marks acknowledged that those who invested in gold this year have made a “ton of money,” but said that the yellow metal’s annual returns since 2010 have been relatively lower compared to the S&P 500’s.

Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, reiterated his antithetical views on gold and Bitcoin (BTC) once again, stating that investing in these assets is not possible analytically.

Known for his value-investing style and emphasis on avoiding losses, Marks called gold a “lackluster investment” despite the yellow metal’s bull run in 2025, during a recent episode of the “We Study Billionaires” podcast.

“You can invest in it out of superstition, you can invest in it because you think it will go up, you can invest in it because you think it will be a store of value, because it always has. But you can’t invest in it analytically on the basis of something called intrinsic value,” Marks said.

So far in 2025, the S&P 500 has gained 16%, while spot gold prices have risen 65%. Bitcoin prices have declined by over 7% year-to-date.

Analysts at ING Think expect gold prices to reach $4,400 per troy ounce by the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2026, implying an upside of 2% from the current price of $4,295.

Intrinsic Value

The Oaktree co-founder, also known for his investment memos, voiced his opposition to Bitcoin, diamonds, and paintings, apart from gold, for lacking intrinsic value.

“If I say to a gold fan or a Bitcoin fan, well, what do you think the price will be in a year, how do they reach that conclusion? What do they base it on, if they don’t have cash flow to base that conclusion on?” Marks asked.

Intrinsic value is the true underlying worth of an asset based on fundamentals like cash flow, assets, and earnings, independent of its current market price.

Gold Versus Equities

While Marks acknowledged that those who invested in gold this year have made a “ton of money,” he pulled up historical returns of the yellow metal and compared it with the annual returns of U.S. equities.

“If you bought gold at the end of 2010, I think you’ve had a 7.7% annual return since then. And if you bought the S&P at the same time, you’ve had a 12.7% rate of return,” he said.

He added that while gold has not been a disaster, investors should not be distracted by the yellow metal’s recent returns. “It’s been a lackluster investment,” he added.

The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) was up 0.06% at the time of writing, while the iShares Gold Trust ETF (IAU) was up 0.08%. Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around the two ETFs trended in the ‘bullish’ territory.

Also See: Is TSLA Stock Fully Priced For Autonomy? Here's What Gary Black Thinks

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