It’s true that market volatility has been unusually low lately but is expected to rise. While there are several ways to mitigate the impact of rising volatility, historically gold has been one of the more effective tools. Looking at monthly Bloomberg data from 1994 to the present, changes in the VIX Index, a measure of U.S. equity volatility, explain nearly 20% of the variation in the relative return between gold and the S&P 500 Index. In months when volatility rose, gold outperformed the S&P 500 price return by roughly 2% on average. And it is worth highlighting the reliability of the relationship: In months when the VIX was higher, gold outperformed 62% of the time. In contrast, when the VIX fell, gold beat the S&P 500 only 35% of the time.