I just heard a rather sad story about gold investment that I want to share with you.

Twenty-two years ago, when gold prices in 2003 were still very low, around 74.5 yuan per gram, an elderly woman decided to exchange all her savings of 300 million yuan to buy 4,000 grams of gold bars. The bank clerk at that time confidently said: gold is hard currency, worth much more than reinforced concrete. She trusted him, stored the gold in a safe, paying a 0.6% annual storage fee, and kept it like that for 22 years.

By spring 2025, her son urgently needed money to put down a house deposit, so the elderly woman was sad and sold her gold. The purchase price from Chu Daisheng was 688 yuan per gram, selling for 2.752 million yuan. On paper, the profit was 2.452 million yuan, with an annual return of 9.2%. Sounds decent, but after deducting 48,000 yuan in accumulated storage fees and accounting for inflation—prices had tripled over those 22 years—the real purchasing power was only equivalent to 820,000 yuan in 2003.

And if she had honestly used that 300 million to buy a house in the Third Ring Road of Beijing? Back then, an old house cost 3,000 yuan per square meter, now it’s up to 150,000 yuan per square meter. 300 million yuan would have turned into 15 billion. That’s a huge difference, right?

This story reveals three rather painful truths:

First, the buy-back price of gold at stores is always about 6% lower than the market price. How much more could she have gained if she sold gold in 2003 to buy a house?

Second, storage fees are like termites, nibbling away at the principal each year. Over 22 years, that’s a significant amount.

Third, inflation—this is the soft knife that kills without blood. In the past, a hao could buy a butter-flavored ice cream; now, even a sugar water ice cream costs eight yuan.

I remember a lady named Wang nearby. In 2003, she also had 300 million yuan but used it to buy Tencent stocks. Now, her account has nine figures.

So, gold is a talisman during wartime, but in peacetime, it becomes a speed limiter for wealth growth. Neighbors often say: hide gold in chaos, hide chips in prosperity. That’s very accurate.

Twenty-two years have passed, long enough for Hong Kong and Macau to each revert twice, and the elderly woman finally realized that hoarding gold in peacetime is like riding a bike on the highway—looks safe, but in reality, the times have left you so far behind that you can’t even see the taillights anymore.