The recent gold sell-off has spurred an avalanche of commentary on the merits of including the precious metal in one’s investment portfolio and, not surprisingly, there has been a fair amount of gloating by those who never thought much of the idea in the first place.

A plunge of over $200 an ounce in just two days and a gold price that is now almost 30 percent below its 2011 record high has many pundits declaring victory over a metal that, aside from jewelry and limited industrial use, has little value.

Little value, that is, aside from functioning as money and a store of value for thousands of years.

The fact that, to some extent, gold is in competition with current day money gets little attention from the yellow metal’s detractors.

Rather, most who now kick gold while it’s down (after 13 years of impressive gains) focus on the world’s economy and global financial system having sufficiently healed after the multiple crises of a few years ago as reason not to be fearful any longer.

Fear, they say, is the reason that people buy gold and, now that things are looking up, there is little reason to own it.

A lot of investors seem to have come to that same conclusion.

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