Gold vs Copper
The metal you keep against the metal you use up. Almost all the gold ever mined still exists, as bars and jewellery; copper goes into cables, roofs and motors and does not come back. Two markets with nothing to do with each other, whose comparison mostly records what each era feared, or built.
Over the period both series share, Gold (Ounce) comes out ahead at +10.8% a year.
| Asset | Total return | Annualised | Volatility | Largest drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold (Ounce) | ×14.6 | +10.8% a year | 15.2% | −40.7% (December 2015) |
| Copper | +631.8% | +7.9% a year | 25.8% | −63.8% (February 2009) |
Figures calculated on 26/10/2026 from monthly closing prices. Past performance is no guide to future performance.
A stock against a flow
Gold is not destroyed. Most of what has been mined since antiquity is still held somewhere, and a year’s production adds a fraction of one per cent to that stock. Its price therefore owes little to how much came out of the ground that year: it depends on what today’s holders choose to do.
Copper is consumed. What is produced gets transformed, installed, and returns to the market only through recycling, years later. Its price is set by this year’s supply against this year’s demand — construction, electrical grids, vehicles, appliances.
Two curves that answer different news
Copper is nicknamed "Dr Copper" for its reputation as a diagnosis of the world economy: it rises when things are built and wired, and falls when sites go quiet. Its curve follows the industrial cycle, and for the past twenty years the Chinese cycle in particular.
Gold answers something else entirely: real interest rates, distrust of currencies, central bank buying. It sometimes rises precisely as copper collapses, because what frightens one set of buyers reassures the other. The gap between the two curves is not a ranking of quality: it is the record of when the world preferred to shelter rather than build.
A note on what is being measured: both series are chains of futures contracts, not the price of stored metal. For these two the gap against physical holding stays modest — which is not true of every commodity.
Frequently asked questions
Why does gold not follow world growth?
Because its industrial use is marginal. It is bought to be kept, not transformed, and what sets its price has more to do with confidence than with activity.
Does copper benefit from the energy transition?
Grids, wind, solar and electric vehicles consume a great deal of it, and demand projections are revised upwards regularly. The curve shown here, however, records only what has already happened.
Can you buy these commodities at the price shown?
No. These are futures prices. Physical gold is bought at a premium and costs something to store; copper is not a retail investment, and funds that offer exposure to it roll contracts, which has a cost of its own.