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Gold versus ASX stocks over 20 years

The metal once considered a 'barbarous relic' unlikely to outperform top technology stocks has now jumped 32% over a start to 2025 punctuated by a global loss of confidence in US dollar assets as its treasuries and share markets are sold-off, despite the Fed cutting interest rates 100 basis points since last September.
Gold bugs argue 2025's price surge means it has now outperformed stocks as an investment over the past 20 years.
As an experiment to test these claims, we can compare the performance of the S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index (ASX: XJOA) versus the gold price over the past 20 years by employing some simple math.
Using the Accumulation Index allows us to account for the fact that stocks return dividends as income to investors, whereas gold, as a lump of metal, doesn't return any cashflow to its owners.
On April 1, 2005, the S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index closed around 22,700 points, versus a gold price of US$427.50 an ounce. In other words, back then you'd have needed 53 ounces of gold to buy the 22,700 points on the index.
Today, the index has climbed to 104,814 points, versus a gold price of US$3,482 an ounce to mean you'd only need 30.1 ounces of gold to buy the index.
This means gold has arguably outperformed ASX stocks - including the benefits of dividends - since 2005.