Markus Andrews

More investors are piling into gold as prices soar, in part because of the government shutdown and expectations of further interest rate cuts on the horizon.
At an economic forum on Tuesday, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said investors should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold.
However, in terms of a long-term investment, the stock market “wins every time,” says Pat Beaird, whose firm landed on CNBC Financial Advisor 100 list for 2025. 

Investors can’t help but notice the sparkle of gold’s record run. But they may want to think twice before adding more of it to their portfolios — over the long haul, it underperforms compared to stocks and other assets.
“Gold glitters but earnings compound,” said Pat Beaird, a certified public accountant and co-founder of Beaird Harris Wealth Management in Dallas.

“Over 30 years, compounding wins every time,” he said. Beaird Harris Wealth Management is ranked No. 3 on CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 list for 2025.

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Gold returns are ‘not reliable’

Gold is on a hot streak.
Spot gold is now over $4,000 per ounce for the first time. It’s also up 51.6% year-to-date, as of Tuesday’s close — and there may be more room to run amid the government shutdown, expectations of interest rate cuts and further geopolitical uncertainty, experts say.
Goldman Sachs analysts forecast prices could hit $4,900 an ounce by the end of 2026, according to a research note published Monday.
Still, over a 30-year period through September, the annualized total return for gold is 7.96%, per Morningstar Direct data. Over the same time frame, the total return of S&P 500 stocks is 10.67%, and for real estate, 8.89%.

“Historically, our view has always been that equities have more staying power as an inflation hedge,” Beaird said. While gold can “pop” during periods of turmoil and huge deficit spending, “it’s not reliable,” he added.
“If I’m going to subject a portfolio to that level of volatility, I’d rather have it in the highest returning asset class.”

Mark Mirsberger, a CPA and CEO of Dana Investment Advisors, which ranked No. 6 on CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 list for 2025, also said other investments are more appealing than metals, even now.  
“We still see diversified balanced portfolios utilizing bonds and asset classes other than gold as more attractive and flexible than using material gold positions,” Mirsberger said.
“Equities have historically been a good hedge against inflation, and they generate earnings growth and pay dividends, something gold doesn’t do,” he said.

Why gold shines in ‘bad economic times’

Gold surged past the $3,900-an-ounce level for the first time on Monday, driven by safe-haven demand following a fall in the yen and a U.S. government shutdown, while growing expectations of additional Federal Reserve rate cuts also lent support.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Yet, at an economic forum on Tuesday, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said investors should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold. He compared today’s environment to the 1970s, when the precious metal jumped by 100% amid geopolitical unrest, inflation, significant government spending and high debt.
“It is one asset that does very well when the typical parts of the portfolio go down,” Dalio said.

Investors regard gold as protective against “bad economic times,” according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
As a safe-haven investment, gold tends to perform well in low-interest-rate environments and during periods of political and financial uncertainty, according to Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. 
With the U.S. government shutdown now in its second week and gold prices hitting new highs, “the trend is very much intact,” he said.

How to invest in gold

Experts often recommend getting investment exposure to gold through an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of physical gold, as part of a well-diversified portfolio, rather than buying actual gold coins or bars. “That makes the most sense for the vast majority of investors,” Samana said.
But despite the metal’s historic run, financial advisors generally recommend limiting gold exposure to a low single-digit percentage of any portfolio.
“It’s always had a position in a lot of our portfolios, but not necessarily a big one,” said John Mullen, president and CEO of Parsons Capital Management, which ranked No. 1 on CNBC’s list of the top 100 financial advisors. Mullen is also a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
However, Mullen said gold is looking increasingly attractive and his firm’s outlook is positive: “We do think that gold can continue to move higher.”

Mullen said his position is not in line with Dalio’s recommendation of 15%, but factoring in “the fiscal mess that is Washington and the uncertainty coming out of there, we’ve become increasingly constructive,” he said.
Largely through investments in gold bullion-backed ETFs and gold miner stocks, “we’ve probably added a couple of percentage points, but still in the single digits,” he said.
Although Beaird said his firm maintains a strategic allocation — of up to 10% — in various alternative investments in the portfolios they manage for clients, “gold is just not one of them.”
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Artificial intelligence is likely to impact jobs differently, based on the skills workers use everyday.
For example, white-collar jobs are most at risk while those requiring more physical interventions are relatively insulated, experts said.

Nitat Termmee | Moment | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt the job market — but some workers are in the crosshairs more than others, according to labor experts.
Roughly 1 in 4 (or, 26%) of the jobs posted on career site Indeed over the past year are poised to “radically transform” due to generative artificial intelligence, also known as gen AI, according to a September report by Indeed.

Gen AI — examples of which include OpenAI’s Chat GPT and Google’s Gemini — mimics human brainpower by creating original content like text, images, video, audio or software code from a user prompt.
Industries in which gen AI can supplant a human’s cognitive reasoning skills — like certain jobs in technology and finance — are most at risk, said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research for North America at Indeed.
“The jobs that are more likely to have a high degree of transformation are white-collar jobs,” Ullrich said.

By contrast, certain roles like nursing and blue-collar jobs in manufacturing or construction are more insulated, Ullrich said.
That’s because occupations that rely more heavily on physical labor or human interaction remain outside the current scope of generative AI, at least for now, according to the Indeed report.

Jobs in “higher-paying fields where a college education and analytical skills can be a plus” are most exposed to artificial intelligence, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study. Budget analysts, data entry keyers, tax preparers, technical writers and web developers are examples of such jobs, it found.
Overall, 19% of American workers in 2022 were in jobs that are the “most exposed to AI,” whereby their most important activities may be replaced or assisted by AI, Pew found.

Agentic AI may affect even more roles

AI job market effects remain ‘largely speculative’

Xavierarnau | E+ | Getty Images

Already, some companies have hinted at workforce cuts because of AI.
For example, the CEO of Accenture, a global professional services company, recently outlined plans to lay off staff who are unable to reskill on artificial intelligence. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in late August that the firm had cut 4,000 customer support roles due to AI.
“I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads,” Benioff said at the time.
However, economists note that the extent of change is minimal at this point.
Despite widespread anxiety over the effects of AI on today’s labor market, such worries remain “largely speculative,” according to an Oct. 1 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
“Overall, our metrics indicate that the broader labor market has not experienced a discernible disruption since ChatGPT’s release 33 months ago, undercutting fears that AI automation is currently eroding the demand for cognitive labor across the economy,” the researchers wrote.
The technology also has some flaws, experts said. For example, AI can still hallucinate and produce inaccurate work, they said. 

So far, gen AI has had limited impact in terms of fully displacing certain skills, Indeed found.
The technology is “very likely” to fully replace just 19 job-related skills — or 0.7% of the roughly 2,900 skills Indeed analyzed. These include basic math, prompt engineering and image classification, for example, it said.
This analysis only measures the technology’s “transformational potential” — in other words, if all businesses were to fully integrate the technology into their workflows, according to Indeed.
But many businesses aren’t there yet, it said.

Augmentation, or automation?

A big debate over the job market effect of AI comes down to augmentation versus automation, said Toubia: “Is AI going to automate your job and make you obsolete, or is it going to augment your job and make you more productive?”
That answer may vary by industry. For instance, some companies may decide to completely automate their customer service or call centers with agentic AI. On the other hand, a human programmer may use AI to write and produce lines of code, boosting their productivity. 
Most industries so far are using AI in such a “hybrid” capacity, in which humans and AI co-exist, said Indeed’s Ullrich.
Almost half — 46% — of skills in a typical U.S. job posting are poised for this hybrid transformation by gen AI, according to Indeed. In this state, human oversight is essential and AI can perform a significant chunk of routine tasks, it said.
About 64% of small businesses are using or piloting AI tools to varying degrees, according to a survey by Homebase, which polled 828 “decision-makers” between May and June.

Going forward, most jobs — 54% — are likely to be “moderately” transformed by generative AI, depending on how quickly businesses adopt the technology, according to the Indeed report.
While experts agree that it’s difficult to predict what the future holds, it’s possible that a potential long-term effect from AI is the creation of new jobs and industries that do not exist yet, said Toubia.
Overall, it’s important to start finding ways to interact with AI in productive ways, he said. If you completely ignore the technology, you may “end up being obsolete very quickly,” Toubia said.  More

ETF Strategist

ETF Street
ETF Strategist

Investors worried about the fallout on markets from a government shutdown may find comfort in historical data showing that the S&P 500 tends to rise following the resolution of stalemates over funding in Washington.
It’s uncertain how stocks may perform this time. But investors usually are best off staying calm and not making financial decisions based on the political drama, experts said.

The U.S. Capitol is seen on the second day of the federal government shutdown in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 2, 2025.
Mehmet Eser | Anadolu | Getty Images

With the government shutdown nearing its one-week mark, investors may be monitoring how the stalemate in Washington is affecting their portfolios.
So far, stocks have been doing just fine. Although the S&P 500 was down slightly on Tuesday, the index returned 0.80% between Oct. 1 and Oct. 6 — and even notched several new highs.

It turns out that market gains during and following a government shutdown are not unusual.
“Historically, shutdowns themselves have rarely derailed equities,” said Cathy Curtis, a certified financial planner and the founder and CEO of Curtis Financial Planning in Oakland, California. Curtis is also a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.

Markets don’t price in ‘current noise’

The S&P 500 spiked 36% during the year after the last government shutdown, which ended in early 2019, Morningstar Direct found. One hundred days following the 1982 shutdown, the index was up 19.7%.
“Markets are forward-looking and tend to price in future conditions, not current noise,” said Andrew Hiesinger, founder and CEO of Quant Data, a market information platform.
Post-shutdown gains aren’t universal. For example, 100 days after the January 2018 shutdown, the S&P had fallen 4.5%, and was still down 3.1% at the one-year mark.

The stock market isn’t performing too poorly during the current shutdown because investors are betting on softer inflation and eventual rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, Hiesinger said.
“The market has learned to discount recurring political drama that rarely changes long-term fundamentals,” he added.

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That means investors can temper their reactions to the headlines, too, Curtis said.
“The best response to a shutdown is usually no reaction at all,” she said. “Staying invested through uncertainty has historically rewarded those who remain patient.”
The S&P 500 shutdown performance data also shows the benefits of investing in a diverse basket of stocks, such as through exchange-traded funds or mutual funds, rather than in any one individual company.
“In times of political gridlock, broad exposure often outperforms reactive trading,” Hiesinger said. More

The choice between traditional versus Roth 401(k) contributions could be trickier than you expect, experts say.
Many investors only weigh current versus future marginal tax brackets, which is the percentage paid on your last dollar of taxable income.
But investors should also consider their effective tax rate, or taxes paid as a percentage of total income.

Kira Hofmann | Photothek | Getty Images

When saving for retirement, you can often pick between traditional and after-tax Roth contributions — and determining the right choice may be trickier than you expect.
Traditional deferrals offer an upfront tax break, but you’ll owe regular income taxes on future withdrawals. The opposite is true for Roth contributions, which happen after taxes, but the balance grows tax-free. 

Many decide between traditional and Roth contributions by weighing current versus future tax brackets, but that can be a mistake, according to certified financial planner Cody Garrett, founder of Measure Twice Planners in Houston.
“People always talk in marginal rates, but lived experiences are [your] effective rates,” said Garrett, who is also co-author of the new book, “Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement.”

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Marginal vs. effective tax rates

The U.S. federal income tax brackets are progressive, meaning tiers of earnings are subject to different rates. Your marginal rate is the percentage paid on your last dollar of taxable income. (You calculate taxable income by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from your adjusted gross income.) 
By comparison, your effective tax rate is taxes paid as a percentage of your total income.
The difference between these numbers matters when making traditional versus Roth contributions because your effective rate in retirement may be much lower than you expect, Garrett said.

Garrett shared an example of marginal versus effective tax rates in a LinkedIn post last month.
Let’s say you’re single and 50 years old, with a gross income of $200,000. For 2025, your standard deduction is $15,750, which brings your taxable income to $184,250.

Breakdown of tax for each tier of taxable income:
$11,925 taxed at 10%: $1,192.50$36,550 taxed at 12%: $4,386$54,875 taxed at 22%: $12,072.50$80,900 taxed at 24%: $19,416Total tax: $37,067

Your highest marginal tax rate is 24%. But your effective tax rate is 18.5%, which is your total tax ($37,067) divided by $200,000 gross income.
However, you would need gross income above $326,900 for your effective rate to reach 24%, Garrett said.
Depending on your situation, pretax contributions could make sense if you’re expecting a much lower effective tax rate in retirement, he said.

Consider your lifetime tax bill

Advisors may have different opinions on traditional versus Roth contributions during your working years. But ultimately, you should weigh tax decisions from a multiyear perspective, experts say.
“Your goal is to pay tax when the rate is the lowest,” certified public accountant Jeff Levine previously told CNBC.
With no pretax savings, some retirees could miss future planning opportunities, such as Roth individual retirement account conversions during early retirement years. More

The New York Fed’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations found that fewer households expect to be better off a year from now.
As a wave of economic uncertainty takes hold, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about their financial future, other research also shows.

Americans are increasingly concerned about their financial situation amid expectations that inflation could pick up, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Tuesday.
The central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations found that consumers expect inflation to be higher in the year ahead, and fewer expect their households’ financial situations to be better off a year from now.

Household spending growth expectations also declined, the New York Fed’s survey found.
More from Personal Finance:Consumers’ top pain points: groceries and gasHow a government shutdown may affect your moneyHow workers can prepare financially for a government shutdown
While many Americans have expressed worries about rising prices and the effect of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, few have changed their spending habits yet. Up until now, experts say, that is what has helped the U.S. avoid a significant economic slowdown.
But Americans are having a harder time keeping up, other research shows. High food costs, in particular, make it more difficult to cover expenses in a typical month. Grocery prices rose by 2.7% in August from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace since August 2023, according to the latest consumer price index.
“Few things drive Americans’ perception of the economy more than grocery prices,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “If people are convinced that those are just going to keep rising, it stands to reason that fewer people would think that their own household’s financial situation would be better off a year from now.”

‘A complex set of uncertainties’

Despite the cautious Fed outlook, a separate report by KPMG shows consumer spending is set to increase heading into the peak shopping season at the end of the year.
“The consumer is spending like a poker player with a small chip stack,” Duleep Rodrigo, KPMG’s U.S. consumer and retail leader, said in a statement.
“They know they can’t play every hand but are willing to go ‘all in’ on a promising hand with a high emotional payoff,” he said of projections that holiday spending will increase compared to last year.
“There’s also a psychological element where the consumer is managing a complex set of uncertainties,” Rodrigo said. More