FRED
RICHMOND ROAD CAPITAL CORP.
stock CVE

Today's divergence is what pushed me to run this test: **gold futures gained about 2.5% while Bitcoin fell about 1.5%** on August 10 closing data.
**But one day is not evidence.** So I tested the broader claim.
Disclosure first: I have significant personal exposure to gold and own no Bitcoin. (I have in owned it in the past) That gives me an obvious potential bias. I tried to deal with it by using a fixed rule, checking the numbers against independent data and including the strongest counterexamples to my own thesis.
**Method :** I used daily closes from August 10, 2016 through August 10, 2026.
1. Identify every S&P 500 price-index drawdown of at least 10%, from the previous closing high to the eventual closing low.
2. Measure continuous COMEX gold futures and BTC/USD over those exact dates.
3. Cross-check the S&P 500 with FRED, gold with the official GLD archive and Bitcoin with Coinbase data published through FRED.
This is an ex-post stress test, not a timing strategy. The trough is only known after it happens.
(This was meant to be a graph and is available as such on my blog but reddit dosen't allow me to post a graph here)
**Episode S&P 500 | Gold futures | Bitcoin |**
Feb. 2018 correction -10.2% | -2.6% | -26.0% |
Q4 2018 -19.8% | +5.1% | -37.4% |
COVID crash -33.9% | -2.5% | -33.4% |
2022 bear market -25.4% | -7.2% | -58.8% |
2025 drawdown -18.9% | +1.7% | -21.1% |
**Bitcoin was negative in all five.** Its median return was -33.4%. Gold was positive in only two of five, so this is not a claim that gold always rises in a crisis. Its median return was -2.5%, and it lost less than Bitcoin in every episode.
**Independent checks**
The FRED S&P 500 series reproduced the same five peak dates, trough dates and drawdown percentages.
The official GLD archive returned -2.4%, +5.0%, -3.6%, -7.3% and +1.6% over the same windows. That is almost identical to the gold-futures result.
Coinbase Bitcoin data through FRED returned -25.9%, -37.9%, -31.4%, -58.8% and -16.0%. Exact BTC returns differ from Yahoo because a 24/7 market needs an arbitrary daily cutoff. The robust result is unchanged: negative in all five, with a median of -31.4% on Coinbase versus -33.4% on Yahoo.
**What happens if the threshold is only 5%?**
That expands the sample to 13 S&P 500 drawdowns.
\- Gold was non-negative in 6 of 13, with a median around -2.3%.
\- Bitcoin was non-negative in 2 of 13, with a median between -16.9% and -21.1% depending on the closing source.
The best counterexample for Bitcoin was the April-to-June 2019 correction. The S&P 500 fell 6.8% while BTC gained roughly 52% on Coinbase data. Bitcoin does not fail in every risk-off period.
Gold also failed badly during the January-to-March 2026 correction. The S&P 500 fell 9.1% and GLD fell 12.9%. BTC fell 25.3%, but gold did not protect capital in that episode.
**Iran is a warning against cherry-picking**
The first week of the 2026 Iran war actually favored Bitcoin: from February 27 to March 6, gold futures fell 1.6% while BTC gained 3.4%.
The July re-escalation also favored BTC over the next five S&P sessions: gold fell 2.0% and BTC gained 2.6%.
The latest seven-day snapshot favored gold: from August 3 to August 10, gold gained 10.3% while BTC gained less than 1%.
These Iran windows were selected retrospectively from the AP chronology. They are context, not a preregistered event study. Depending on the week, either side can cherry-pick a win.
**My conclusion**
If "safe haven" means an asset that always rises in a crisis, neither gold nor Bitcoin qualifies.
If it means an asset that has reduced the damage during major equity drawdowns, gold has the stronger record in this ten-year sample. Bitcoin may have other valuable characteristics, but it has not yet demonstrated gold-like downside protection.

What definition would you use for a safe haven, and what result would make you change your view on gold or Bitcoin?
This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
**Sources:**
\- S&P 500 methodology and independent data: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SP500/downloaddataand](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SP500/downloaddataand)
\- Official GLD description and historical archive: [https://www.spdrgoldshares.com/usa/gld/](https://www.spdrgoldshares.com/usa/gld/)
\- Coinbase Bitcoin through FRED: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CBBTCUSD](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CBBTCUSD)
\- Iran chronology: [https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-timeline-trump-hormuz-war-ceasefire-04da58cbae991183f8b52ef5bf615963](https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-timeline-trump-hormuz-war-ceasefire-04da58cbae991183f8b52ef5bf615963)
\- Academic safe-haven definition: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=952289](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=952289)

I would attempt to argue that Propel is does not fall under socially irresponsible investing. Payday loans usually cluster around low income neighborhoods targeting these communities with APR above 300%.

Propel on the other hand is online platform (although they have brick and mortar bank partners). Most usually find Propel rather than Propel aggressively marketing themselves to low income communities.
Banks are willing to partner with them as they have clients which the banks themselves refuse to lend to their own customers. Propel provides value by lending to customers where no one else wants to. Propel have recently shifted to lending towards higher quality clients at lower APR (lowest rate at 35%) if that helps.
Note that Propel faces 12%-14% default rates, 4 times higher than US credit card default rates (est 2.9% by FRED). They have to price their rates in accordance to the risk they are taking.