The Great Flip: Why Hard Assets Are Replacing Wall Street’s Favorites

The Great Flip: Why Hard Assets Are Replacing Wall Street’s Favorites

A forgotten asset class is crushing the S&P 500. Most investors still don’t see it coming.

In 2020, the story was simple. Tech stocks were unstoppable. Bonds were safe. Growth stocks could do no wrong. And anything tied to oil, gold, or copper was considered irrelevant.

That belief has unraveled.

Since the beginning of 2025, a portfolio built around hard assets like gold, energy, and industrial metals has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 300 percent.

What most investors wrote off as “dead money” has turned into the highest-performing corner of the market.

This isn’t a temporary spike. It’s not a bounce. It’s a full-scale reversal.

And it’s only getting started.

The Inflation Era Is Real