Imagine two people who added $10,000 to their investment accounts on January 1st, every year for the past 15 years.
One of them is risk averse. They put the money into Certificates of Deposits, getting a few percentage points each year, but the principal is insured.
The other is less risk averse; they put money into an S&P500 Index each year.
Who comes out ahead? The answer might surprise you.
A man who decided to put his savings into gold in 1970 could have bought just over 27.8 ounces of the precious metal for $1,000. At the time of writing, with gold trading at $900 an ounce, he could have sold it for around $25,000.