There's no reason to own gold in U.S. dollar terms, commodities trader Dennis Gartman said Monday.

"Owning gold has been just a treacherous, boring, nasty trade that just keeps losing money for anybody who buys it," he said. "There will be a time when inflationary pressures will once again exhibit themselves, but that time is not now."

On CNBC's "Fast Money," Gartman said that investors are looking at a deflationary environment.

"If you're fearful about inflation, you're wrong," he said. "Grain prices are down. Iron ore prices are down. Crude oil prices are down. Rubber prices are down."

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Gartman said that owning gold in other currencies was a better option.

"Owning gold in non-U.S. dollar terms, however—owning it in yen terms, owning it in euro terms—has actually been OK," he said. "You're down about 1 percent over the course of the last two or three years, whereas if you own gold in dollar terms, you're down like 35 percent."

Still, the editor and publisher of The Gartman Letter said that he wouldn't short gold.

"I wish that I had been short of gold in dollar terms. It would've been an absolutely brilliant trade, but I'm not that smart. I have wanted to own a bit of gold, just predicated in a different currency, so I'll leave it at that," he said. "I can understand why somebody might want to be short of gold. I wouldn't do it, not down here.

"Being short of gold at $1,600 an ounce, at $1,400, at $1,500 was probably not a bad idea, but here at $1,200 I think I'd let somebody else do it. I won't."