*Disclaimer: I am not looking for personal financial advice. I'm looking to understand why gold investment is considered speculative.*
I'm currently in the process of researching my employer money market plan that contributes a large sum of money (20%+ of my salary annually) into retirement funds. I'm personally skeptical of deepening my investment into American companies and my concern is that many of us are over-invested in American capital and implicitly the understanding that the U.S. will remain the global superpower. Should the U.S. dollar lose it's fiat status (something that is ever increasingly more likely), all American retirement accounts would take a huge hit. Or so I think!
I sold most of my 401k and Roth and invested those funds into gold and silver and was looking to do that with my money purchase plan. However, it doesn't look like that's an option. I'm only able to switch to other mutual funds. I was told that gold is considered a high risk investment. Why is that?
For my family, gold has been a very safe and secure investment, especially for retaining purchasing power during times of war. [Gold has outperformed the S&P 500 in the past 25 years](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gold/comments/1qjipcy/gold_vs_sp_500_after_25_years/). Am I wrong to think that banks have a vested interest in keeping wealth disinvested in gold? To disparage it as a "risky" investment?