Stocks or gold: which returned more?
Page computed 19 Oct 2026 15:08 (Istanbul) · refreshed hourly
Looking at this question in Turkish lira is misleading: inflation and the exchange rate make the lira return look larger than it is. The right question is this — what if the money put into BIST 100 had been put into gold over the same period? The table below shows the BIST 100 return in three different units of account. Where the "in gram gold" column is negative, gold beat the stock market over that period.
| Period | In Turkish lira | In US dollars | In gram gold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 1 year | +10.99% | -6.28% | -16.20% |
How is this calculated?
The BIST 100 closing series is divided by the same day's gram gold (and USD/TRY) value, which restates the index in "how many grams of gold it is worth". The return is then computed on that new series. Dividends are not included — so the real stock market return is somewhat higher than the table shows.
What it does not show
Past return is not a promise about the future. The table is a comparison, not advice. Picking a single start date changes the result, which is why two different periods are given together. For the technical state of individual shares, see the BIST 100 stock analyses.