Ron Paul’s Portfolio Matches His Rhetoric

His investments – surprise! – are weighted heavily towards gold:

There are many possible doomsday scenarios for the U.S. economy and financial markets, explains [William Bernstein, an investment manager at Efficient Portfolio Advisors ], and Rep. Paul’s portfolio protects against only one of them: unexpected inflation accompanied by a collapse in the value of the dollar. If deflation (to name one other possibility) occurs instead, “this portfolio is at great risk” because of its lack of bonds and high exposure to gold.

Bainbridge asks whether Paul's investments have paid off:

I wonder what the annual return on his portfolio's been. If memory serves, stocks have outperformed gold over the last 80 or so years, but gold's at least matched stocks over the last ten years (depending on whether one includes dividend yield as well as stock price appreciation). So he might have done okay, especially because his buy and hold strategy would have avoided a lot of transaction fees that erode the return of more frequent traders.