Fidelity's Director of Global Macro, Jurrien Timmer, said he prefers Bitcoin over gold following the latest market sell-off, even though both assets declined. His reasoning centers on Bitcoin's price relative to gold, which has held up better during the downturn.
What Timmer Is Watching
Timmer is not claiming that Bitcoin rose while gold fell. Both assets slid during the sell-off, which the research places around November 6-7. Instead, he focuses on the ratio between the two assets. One Bitcoin bought approximately 12 ounces of gold at its low point in this cycle, and it now buys roughly 21 ounces.
That move has also pushed Bitcoin above the recent trading range it held against gold. For technical analysts, a break like that often signals a change in leadership between two assets.
Timmer has tracked these shifts closely, recording several rotations of speculative capital between Bitcoin and gold since late 2025. Those rotations picked up after Bitcoin peaked close to $126,000 in 2025 and gold's own momentum began to fade.
The ETF Scoreboard
Timmer's preference aligns with where institutional money has been going. Since 2024, spot Bitcoin ETFs have pulled in nearly $55 billion in inflows. Gold and silver exchange-traded products have attracted around $29 billion over the same stretch, putting Bitcoin funds at roughly double the precious metals haul.
Neither Asset Is Acting Like a Safe Haven
Both Bitcoin and gold have recently shown a correlation of 60-70% with the S&P 500. In other words, when stocks fall, these two have tended to fall alongside them.
Timmer has not abandoned gold entirely. He continues to endorse both assets as tools for diversifying against monetary and fiscal instability. His current lean toward Bitcoin is about near-term prospects—a tactical tilt, not a declaration that gold has lost its place in a portfolio.
Why the Bitcoin-Gold Ratio Matters
For investors, the Bitcoin-to-gold ratio is a useful lens because it strips out the noise of the dollar. It shows how two competing hedges stack up against each other directly.
The recovery from about 12 ounces to about 21 ounces suggests the pendulum has swung back toward Bitcoin, at least for now. Timmer's own record of documented rotations, however, is a reminder that this pendulum has swung several times recently.
What This Means for Investors
The most immediate takeaway is that a prominent Fidelity strategist sees Bitcoin holding its ground better than gold under pressure. The ETF flow data supports the idea that institutions are already leaning this way. A gap of nearly $55 billion versus around $29 billion is hard to dismiss as a rounding error.
Yet the high correlation with stocks is a real risk. If both assets keep tracking the S&P 500 at 60-70%, their value as diversifiers shrinks during broad market drawdowns. Timmer's position sits somewhere in the middle: he holds both as hedges against monetary and fiscal turbulence while tilting toward the one showing better relative strength.
