Has the S&P 500 really doubled since 2023? Chris Wood says it is down 21% in gold terms

Wall Street’s seemingly spectacular rally has a striking flipside: the S&P 500 has doubled in dollar terms since the beginning of 2023, but investors measuring their returns against gold have suffered a 21% decline, according to Jefferies’ global head of equity strategy Christopher Wood.

The divergence cuts to the heart of Wood’s warning that efforts to suppress US bond yields may support equity prices in nominal terms while steadily eroding the value of the currency in which those returns are measured.

In his latest GREED & fear report, Wood argued that any successful intervention to contain Treasury yields would shift pressure away from the bond market and onto the dollar, strengthening alternative stores of value such as gold and Bitcoin.


“The investment implications are clear,” Wood said. For equity investors, a rising stock index does not necessarily translate into an increase in purchasing power when the underlying currency is weakening against gold.

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S&P 500’s 100% rally disappears against gold

The S&P 500 has gained 100% in US dollar terms since the start of 2023. But when denominated in gold, the index has fallen 21% over the same period.

Wood used Japan’s experience with yield curve control to illustrate how monetary suppression can inflate equity prices without creating equivalent gains in hard asset terms.

Since Japan introduced yield curve control in September 2016, the Topix has surged 213% in yen terms. Yet the index has declined 43% when measured against gold.

The contrasting performances suggest that liquidity-driven equity rallies can look dramatically different once returns are adjusted for the depreciation of the currency against bullion.

Wood has long argued that yield curve control is the likely endgame for the US as the country moves towards what he describes as the demise of the dollar-based paper standard. Before directly fixing yields, however, policymakers are likely to experiment with less explicit forms of yield suppression.

Is 4.75% the US Treasury’s line in the sand?

Wood sees recent efforts by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to contain long-term borrowing costs as evidence of that shift.

The Treasury initially announced an increase in buybacks of long-dated government bonds. Bessent subsequently said the purchases could exceed the announced $4 billion per issue.

Senior Treasury officials were then cited as saying that the government could potentially use its nearly $1 trillion Treasury General Account to finance additional bond buybacks.

Deploying the account in that manner would be both inflationary and supportive of liquidity because bank reserves would increase as the Treasury’s cash balance declined, Wood said.

He identified a yield of around 4.75% on the 10-year Treasury as Bessent’s apparent “line in the sand.” The yield subsequently eased to 4.66%.

The key question for markets is not merely whether these measures succeed in lowering borrowing costs, but where the resulting pressure reappears. Wood’s answer is the dollar.

The US Dollar Index fell as much as 1.1% by August 20 following the initial buyback announcement. Over the same period, gold gained 6.6%, while Bitcoin jumped 22%.

Yield suppression may therefore remain supportive of equities, but potentially at the expense of the currency used to value those equities.

Gold and Bitcoin emerge as key beneficiaries

Wood’s portfolios remain positioned in gold and gold-mining shares. Gold miners have rallied 49% since bottoming in mid-July, according to the report.

Bitcoin’s recent rebound has also prompted Wood to reassess his earlier expectation that the cryptocurrency would follow its usual four-year post-halving cycle and bottom approximately one year after reaching its October 2025 peak of $126,251.

Bitcoin has now risen 36% from its 2026 low of $57,742, touched in early July.

Wood acknowledged that there is now a possibility he has “missed the bottom” in Bitcoin.

The simultaneous strength in bullion, gold-mining shares and Bitcoin reflects the same underlying trade: investors seeking alternatives as policymakers attempt to prevent bond yields from rising further.

For stock investors, however, the S&P 500’s performance against gold remains the clearest demonstration of the potential cost. The index can continue advancing in dollar terms even as it loses ground against an asset viewed by Wood as a hedge against monetary and fiscal deterioration.

Wood sees no reason to own long-term US bonds

Wood remains firmly bearish on long-dated Treasuries, describing them as being in a structural bear market that began in March 2020 after a 39-year bull run.

He said there is “zero reason for long-term investors to own long-term Treasury bonds” as long as policymakers remain unwilling to allow the bond market to impose fiscal discipline.

Attempts to suppress yields could temporarily relieve pressure on Treasury prices and support liquidity-sensitive assets. But they would also reinforce the investment case for gold by weakening confidence in the dollar-based financial system.

That leaves investors with a more complicated scorecard than the S&P 500’s headline return suggests. In nominal dollars, Wall Street has delivered a 100% gain since the beginning of 2023. Against gold, it has destroyed more than a fifth of its value.