Finishing the year at $2,641.00 an ounce, gold gained a record $569.20 over the past 12 months, the biggest annual price bump for the most-active futures contract when looking at data going back to 1975, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Gold gained 27.47% on the year, topping the roughly 23.2% return of the S&P 500. But on a percentage basis, it was only the largest one-year gain for gold since 2010 when it rose 29.67%.