Gold makes a great investment these days. It seems like the unstable economic conditions of the last couple of years have only made gold trading that much more enticing for many people. There are a lot of people who are arguing that gold is the best investment that you can make these days, and it can be hard to believe whether or not all of these voices are being honest. After all, when there are a lot of people who are all in favor of the same type of investing, it can be hard to evaluate whether or not it really is a great investment opportunity, or whether it is nothing more than a lot of hype. So let’s briefly look at whether or not gold really is such a great place to put your money.
One of the biggest questions people ask about investing in gold is whether or not it will make them as much money as investing in other asset classes will. For example, everyone knows that you can make a ton or money when investing in stocks, but not everyone knows whether or not you can make a ton of money investing in gold. The short answer is, yes you can.
But let’s talk about the long answer to that question. Part of the reason why you can make so much money investing in stocks is due to the fact that they can be so volatile. A stock can make you a fortune overnight, or it can make you lose all your money in an afternoon. Stocks can grow massively over time, or they can slowly grind your investment portfolio down to bankruptcy. They can be powerful vehicles for making money, but only because they can also be powerful vehicles for losing you money.
On the other hand, gold is an incredibly stable form of investment. There is little to no risk that you will ever lose a substantial amount of money investing in gold, and there is actually very little risk that you will lose ANY amount of money investing in gold- especially if you are treating gold as a long term investment.
Yet, this stability also means that you probably aren’t going to see the same meteoric and blisteringly fast rise growth of your investment portfolio that you can sometimes see when you invest in stocks.
Now, it is possible to make a lot of money from gold. People who invested in gold a decade ago have seen an incredible return on their investment as the price of gold has grown tremendously over the last 10 years. This rapid rise seems to be over though, as the market has stabilized. That’s not to say that there won’t be many more opportunities for the same level of sustained and significant growth, but it’s unlikely to occur any time soon.
So does that mean you shouldn’t invest in gold? Not at all. Gold really is one of the best investments out there. Those people who attempted to get rich quick investing in highly speculative stocks that had the potential to skyrocket have seen their portfolios bottom out over the last couple of years. Stock trading is nothing more than gambling, but intelligently purchasing gold is as sure an investment as you will ever find.
