RSS Feed MenuToday’s National Post column warns small investors against speculating in gold:
The price of gold has zoomed past US$1,000 an ounce, reaching an all-time record of US$1,070 on Wednesday. Suddenly, talk radio and cable television are jammed with ads urging small investors to buy coins and bars. One vendor pushes its product with this amazing slogan: “Gold has never been worth zero!” (You’d think the more relevant question might be: “Has gold ever been worth less than I’m about to pay for it?”)
Gold is a strange investment vehicle. If the typical small investor were to hear a pitch for investment in copper, zinc or molybdenum, he or she would probably react negatively. “The metals market? Are you crazy? That’s no place for me.” But if the metal is gold, suddenly everybody wants to play.
Read the rest here.
sinz54 // Oct 17, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I invested in gold, and in precious metal mutual funds, back in April 2003 when gold was around $350 per ounce. Those investments have tripled so far.
I’m continuing to hold them.
Hard assets are a good investment when the Federal Government is being run by doctrinaire liberals who would rather debase the currency than let their favorite constituencies (unions and minorities) suffer.
joemarier // Oct 17, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I think we all learned the dangers of metals speculation from Paul Ehrlich.
joemarier // Oct 17, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Your last line got cut off. I think that sentence was supposed to end “in Grayson or Wexler’s district.”
joemarier // Oct 17, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Okay, one more. I invested in gold in August of 2004. It’s worked out great! We celebrated our fifth anniversary last month!
EscapeVelocity // Oct 17, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Im investing in Barack Hussein Obama! and the massive expansion of government size and power!
It just keeps on going UP!
joemarier // Oct 17, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Well, GE is up 141 percent off its low…
greg_barton // Oct 17, 2009 at 10:10 pm
sinz:
Hard assets are a good investment when the Federal Government is being run by doctrinaire liberals…
So, in 2003 when you invested, the government was being run by doctrinaire liberals?
BoolaBoola // Oct 18, 2009 at 12:03 am
So let me get this straight–you gold-bugs think gold will retain its value after other things lose their value?
Nonsense. When the economy finishes tanking, no one will have money to buy gold WITH. So demand will drop, so price will drop. Gold will become every bit as worthless as other luxury items.
You want a good investment? Start hoarding shoes, gasoline, umbrellas, knives–things people NEED, and USE. Not gems, not precious metals, not perfume, not caviar, not rare books, and not tulip-bulbs.
Hoard the things you would take on a wilderness-vacation.
sinz54 // Oct 18, 2009 at 9:45 am
greg_barton: So, in 2003 when you invested, the government was being run by doctrinaire liberals?
That’s just one of several good opportunities.
I didn’t say that the ONLY time to invest in gold is when the government is run by doctrinaire liberals.
In 2003, I observed the geopolitical chaos being caused by the War on Terror. I expected that invading Iraq was going to boost the prices of commodities.
And so, I invested 50% in precious metals and 50% in natural resources, particularly energy stocks.
If Ron Paul had been elected President in 2008, the prices of gold and oil would have collapsed, absolutely crashed, because of his well-known desire to stabilize the currency and return to a gold standard.
Obama is the diametric opposite of Paul.
sinz54 // Oct 18, 2009 at 9:48 am
BoolaBoola: you gold-bugs think gold will retain its value after other things lose their value?
I do not.
Gold is an investment like any other. Sometimes it’s in a bull market, sometimes it’s in a bear market.
I hope that the disastrous Wall Street conditions of the last decade have finally convinced smart investors that “buy and hold,” a strategy first pushed on the American public in the 1980s when the stock market was in long-term bull market conditions, is now dead.
No investment is sure to keep rising forever. Not the Dow Jones Industrial Average, not real estate, not gold, not oil. Be nimble and keep alert.