The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, March 27, edition that between February, 2024, and February, 2026, gold rose from $2,049 an ounce to $5,248 an ounce. The Globe's guest columnist George Athanassakos wonders if such profits can endure over the long run. Gold prices have fallen by more than 15 per cent in the past couple of weeks. History shows that although gold can be a good short-term investment, it has not been a reliable long-term one. It likely will not be this time either. Commodities, including gold, are cyclical. Their prices rise and fall; they do not just increase indefinitely. According to the Financial Times, since 1900, the real annual return on gold has been about 1.3 per cent, underperforming both global bonds (1.7 per cent) and stocks (6.7 per cent). But since the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971, gold has delivered an annual return of about 4.7 per cent, driven by the 2001-11 bull market and the sharp run-up in 2024-25. Moreover, a Merrill Lynch study examining the performance of 10 different asset classes over rolling periods between 1970 and 2007 found that gold was the worst-performing asset. History shows that longer holding periods tend to reduce gold's relative performance.