Going for Gold

For thousands of years, gold has been viewed as the ultimate safe haven for investors, especially in times of economic distress. If these gut-wrenching times have you thinking about investing in gold as a guiding hand through the fiscal wilderness, you’re not alone.

Investing in gold is easy these days. The menu is heavily laden and readily available. You can buy the gold itself in the form of ingots or bars (at the time of this writing for about $942 per ounce) and take physical possession of the stuff or have others store it in your name. You can buy gold futures or gold options, shares in gold mining companies, mutual funds or exchange traded funds (ETFs) that specialize in gold investments. If you like to spice things up with a bit of additional speculation, you can join the worldwide collectors of gold coins issued by many countries around the world.

There’s a lot to be said for investing in gold in almost any form. Gold will not tarnish or deteriorate with age. The gold that is turned out by today’s vast gold mining operations is exactly the same as the gold that was dug out of the ground thousands of years ago.

Keep in mind, however, that gold is no different than any other investment vehicle in one important way: It is not risk free. While the precious metal itself may not change, its market price can and does bounce up and down just as any other investment.

From March 1999 to February 2009,  the price of gold per ounce varied from a low of $252 in 1999 to a high of $1,002 in 2008.

It remains to be seen what will happen to the price of gold as a result of the current economic uncertainty.
Whether your interest in gold involves the possibility of investing in it either directly or indirectly, remember that it is still subject to the ups and downs of modern market activity.

The author is a freelance writer based in Abington, Pa., with 40 years experience in business management and financing.