Voima Weekly #22 – The Atom Pile Beat the Human Machine

S&P500 VS Gold. (USD)¹

Over the past 25 years, a single element from the periodic table — Au, gold² — has delivered stronger returns than the S&P 500, an index composed of 500 of the largest publicly listed companies in the United States. These companies employ vast amounts of people, technology, and management talent, all organized around one goal: creating value for shareholders. And yet, this “pile of atoms” has quietly outperformed, pulling ahead over an entire quarter of a century.

Frankly, the comparison is unfair to gold. Gold does not develop products, hire employees, innovate, or hold strategy offsites. It carries no technology, labor, competitive, or management risk. It cannot go bankrupt, and it cannot fail. It sits in vaults, in jewelry, and in small but meaningful ways — inside our technology. The S&P 500, by contrast, carries nearly all the risk of the modern economy, and for that very reason, it should theoretically reward risk-taking far more generously. But that is not what has happened. Risk-taking has been rewarded surprisingly poorly.

The reason is not a failure of companies or people, but of the monetary system. The creation of new money has grown so large that it has failed to generate a corresponding increase in real productivity, innovation, or sustainable economic growth. Capital has flowed into markets, but too often it has inflated prices and valuations rather than building lasting wealth.

At present, the S&P 500 trades at a P/E ratio of roughly 30. In simple terms, this means investors are paying about 30 dollars for each dollar of annual earnings. You are buying a one-dollar income stream for thirty dollars. A real-world comparison makes this clearer. Imagine purchasing a rental property for €300,000 and receiving €10,000 in annual rent. The payback period is 30 years. Many would say: that’s an expensive property. An S&P 500 P/E of around 30 implies the same valuation logic applied to the entire equity market.

But what about gold — is it expensive at roughly €118 per gram³? That is the wrong question. The right question is: when did the measuring stick change?

Imagine an investor with €1 million invested in the S&P 500. He sells, because valuations feel stretched. Now he holds €1 million in a bank account. The bank pays 1% interest. At the same time, Europe runs deficits, bureaucracy expands, taxation tightens, and everyday life becomes more expensive — coffee, lunch, cars, holidays. The million gradually buys less and less with each passing year.

At this point, one rational strategy is to measure prices in gold — not in euros, not in dollars, but in gold. Gold has functioned as a store of value for thousands of years, and it continues to do so. When assets begin to look cheaper when priced in grams of gold, it may make sense to reduce exposure. Gold is not a promise of future returns. It is insurance for purchasing power.

A brief aside on Keynesianism⁴. In practice, Keynesian economic policy responds to crises with stimulus, debt and money — in order to keep demand and employment functioning. The intention is to soften downturns. The side effect is often the same: stimulus becomes a permanent reflex, government expands, regulation increases, and bureaucracy gradually begins to crowd out productive and creative activity.Bureaucracy is typically dismantled only under pressure, and often only just enough to keep the system going.

When uncertainty rises, capital moves toward places where it cannot be diluted by decisions. Equities are a promise of future success. Gold is a promise that it will not change. Over time, trust accumulates where the number of variables is lowest.

In the United States, stimulus continues. Europe remains structurally stagnant. China’s debt-driven model tells the same story: preserving purchasing power in fiat currency is difficult. Is gold expensive? No. But holding a million in a bank account can be.

For this reason, Voima Account exists — not as a vehicle for speculation, but to protect purchasing power in a world where currency debasement has become structural, and where taking risk no longer automatically delivers superior real returns.

A final note — and a small provocation. If your asset manager still has not recommended gold, it is worth asking why. The answers are often familiar: “we don’t invest in commodities” or “gold doesn’t generate income.” But gold is not a commodity in the same sense as copper or oil — and its role is not to compete on cash flows.

Gold’s role is to preserve and measure purchasing power, and in that role it has succeeded. When money has been created in excess of real economic value, gold has not merely revealed the weakness of the measuring stick: it has concretely increased purchasing power relative to the currency in which savings were held. This is evident in the fact that, over time, the same amount of gold has been able to purchase more goods, services, and other assets than fiat money alone.

Gold is therefore not “unproductive.” It simply delivers value in a different way — not through promises of future returns, but by protecting and, at times, increasing what has already been earned. When this is not understood, the issue is not so much one of investment philosophy, but of viewing the macro environment too narrowly: real purchasing power, monetary expansion, and capital allocation are pushed aside in favor of simplified return narratives.

If gold is missing from a portfolio, the mirror is missing as well.

–Marko Viinikka
Founder, CEO
Voima Gold Oy

¹ Source: Berenberg Markets Monitor, 10 June 2025. The S&P 500 Net Return index used in the comparison includes dividends net of taxes, and therefore better reflects the actual investor experience than a theoretical total return measure.

² Au (79) is the chemical symbol for gold in the periodic table of elements. Au comes from the Latin word aurum, and 79 refers to gold’s atomic number — the number of protons in its nucleus. This atomic structure makes gold chemically exceptional: highly stable and inherently scarce — qualities that cannot be altered by policy decisions or printing presses.

³ To my USD per ounce readers: €118 per gram reflects the gold price at the time of writing (13 December 2025). Converted to U.S. units, this corresponds roughly USD ~4300 per troy ounce at prevailing EUR/USD exchange rates. Figures rounded.

⁴ Keynesianism: An economic theory developed by John Maynard Keynes.

Disclaimer: Voima Weeklies are the personal writings of the undersigned. They do not necessarily represent the official view of Voima Gold Oy or any other company, nor do they constitute investment advice or a recommendation to purchase securities.