For centuries now, gold has been a valuable commodity. But in today’s world, with plenty of investment options, does gold remain a good investment option, and should anyone invest in gold?
The Pros of investing or buying Gold
It is easy to buy and sell. You can walk into any gold store and buy gold and many places that sell gold will often buy back gold at the current market price.
It is an easy means of saving – You can buy gold for as little as a gram in physical gold and continue to keep adding to it when you have the extra money to save. There are multiple financial institutes that also have gold investment as an option, if you do not wish to own physical gold.
Protection against inflation – Over time, money does lose its value. But gold has always appreciated over time.
Gold is a scarce resource and there is always a demand for gold.
It can be passed on from generation to generation.
Just like every other investment option out there, the best time to invest in gold is when the values are low. The gold market is a highly volatile one and the price of gold keeps fluctuating. But if you look at the year-on-year average, the value of gold has always been on the rise. The many ways of investing in gold are:
Buy gold coins or bars
Buy gold jewelry. If you decide to buy jewelry as an investment, it is best to buy the jewelry in 24k or 22k.
Buy Gold with financial institutions: Here, you do not receive any physical gold. You can always sell it when the rates are profitable for you. There are many options, you can invest a fixed sum with financial institutions on a monthly basis and this would be a good investment.
Cons of investing in gold
Purity of Gold – Know your source well before you make the purchase.
When you want to sell gold jewelry, there will be a making charge deduction on your returns.
Security and storage – If you have a considerable amount of gold, then the risk of losing it or it being stolen is always there. You might want to invest in lockers to safeguarding the gold.
There is no passive income from owning gold.
Although, investing in gold does have its cons. Gold has always been a profitable investment, if you decide to hold on to it for long term.
An interesting fact is that, if you had invested in gold 10 years ago and decide to sell it today see graph below to see where you stand ;-)
Thank you for reading.
Image by Omar Hadad from Pixabay