For the Edgar Allen Poe's short story, see The Gold Bug

The term goldbug is to describe investors who are very bullish on buying the commodity gold. This practice, however, is usually associated with claims that a certain company, sector, or the entire stock market is going to crash and thus gold will be the only thing left of stable value. Goldbugs have a lot of published work, and Web articles. They are sometimes among the first people to mention a pending problem, such as a real estate bubble. While they may be right sometimes, critics contend that overall goldbugs preach doom and gloom in an attempt to persuade others to buy gold, driving up the price so they can sell the gold they have for a profit. This practice has also been alleged to occur by those who short sell a stock. Unfortunately, it can be hard to distinguish the "doom and gloom" preaching from real solid research.