Gold futures or stocks? Analyst picks stocks.

On a day in which gold prices hovered around $1,600 an ounce, widely followed investor Dennis Gartman said there were better plays around.

 “I think one is going to do better by owning steel, owning copper, owning railroads, owning Apple, than one will doing being long of the gold market,” he said Tuesday. “Up until August of last year, gold seriously outperformed equities.”

 U.S. gold futures dipped 0.7 percent to close at $1,594.80 an ounce, while spot gold closed down $12 at $1,592.96.

The noted economist and editor of The Gartman Letter said on “Fast Money” that the precious metal continued to lag and reiterated his neutral view on the trade.

 Gartman made headlines when he announced that he had sold all the gold in his personal account, a move he said was justified.

 “Gold has begun to seriously underperform equities, and I moved, rather shockingly, to the point of being out of the gold market and long of equities against the euro, and it’s been a wonderful trade,” he said.

 Last week, Gartman predicted that the S&P 500 would outperform gold and global stocks.

 For now, it would take significant trading action to get him back in the gold trade.

 “We’ve seen reversals on charts before where you make a new low and then close higher on the day,” he said. “We’re going to have to see that sort of price action rather than price itself, or rather than some event.”