Interestingly, gold’s value as a hedge has historically been most pronounced during those periods when you need it the most. Put differently, historically gold has outperformed equities by an even larger magnitude when volatility is rising from an already elevated level. Again, from 1994 to the present using Bloomberg data, during months when the VIX was already above 20 and rose even further, gold outperformed by an average of nearly 5%, beating the S&P 500 roughly 75% of the time.