Why should you buy gold? It doesn’t generate interest or dividends the way equities and securities do. Some investment advisors are not keen on the precious metal, while others believe it belongs in any balanced portfolio.
Gold is several things: an inflation hedge, a long-standing store of value, and a physical asset. These are the three main reasons people invest in gold.
1. Gold Is An Inflation Hedge
Inflation is the constant erosion of value of fiat currency. It’s why the cost of a loaf of bread was only 25 cents in 1970, and it now costs $2.00 on average. The bread is the same, but the dollar isn’t worth what it used to be. Inflation rates are significantly on the rise for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. Generous monetary policies are finally catching up with inflation, and the value of currencies worldwide will suffer. Buy gold online from dealers like Silver Gold Bull for lower premiums on bullion gold coins and gold bars if you’re worried about inflation.
2. Gold Has Society’s Confidence As a Medium of Exchange
The insistence that the world needed some kind of gold standard backing global monetary policy ended only around 50 years ago, when President Nixon unexpectedly ended the fixed convertibility of US dollars for gold. Under the Bretton-Woods agreement, the US had maintained this gold standard as a way of underpinning the rest of the global economy. By the 1970s, US debt was so high that there were worries there would be a mass push to exchange US dollars for gold, emptying American treasuries and causing the dollar to collapse.
When confidence in fiat currency is low, gold prices rise. Not only should you buy gold as an inflation hedge, you can also buy gold because general confidence in gold as a medium of exchange remains high. You may hear people advise you that gold’s intrinsic value doesn’t match its market value. The fact remains that for thousands of years, people around the globe have agreed that gold is valuable and based their entire currencies around it. Gold is real money.
3. Physical Assets Are Secure
Physical assets are things you can feel or hold in your hands. Real estate, commodities, machinery, and inventory are physical assets. You can store gold and other precious metals in a safe in your home or in global storage solutions, such as those offered by Silver Gold Bull. When you buy gold, you have an opportunity to hold your wealth outside of a banking system that looks increasingly risky for investors.
Thanks to the new bank bail-in regime coming into place across the globe, a bank’s creditors and depositors are now responsible for bailing out banks when their own risky practices land them in trouble. The idea is to spare taxpayer money, but as a depositor, you should be concerned. One of the benefits of buying gold online is that you can have it shipped straight to your home or stored on-site somewhere outside of the banking system.
Gold is your safe haven when you’re not sure where the economy is going. It should always be part of your portfolio even when the economy is booming. Anytime uncertainty causes market ripples, gold tends to appreciate in price.