Ways You Can Begin To Invest In Gold For Future Growth

Gold is an investment most people deal in, whenever there is a volatility seen in the stock market. The position of gold on the market front strengthens with the weakening of the dollar. One can invest in gold in the following ways: Owning of the metal itself, Gold Mutual funds or Gold Mining Stocks.

How can you create a portfolio so as to profit from a bull market in gold? Let us presently believe that gold has a very bright future ahead as hope for latent profits in the coming years is not going to be found in the traditional American blue chip industry, which may be fast losing out to competition in the world market. Regardless of the ups and downs in the gold standard and whether or not the same is approved by central banks, the material worth of gold as carrying real, solid value will remain unchanged. History has always proved the same and will continue doing so. So, although the fiat currency may be prevalent, we will always be on a “gold standard”.how to invest in gold tips

There are a number of preferences to choose from. The following information covers five ways to invest in gold and choosing the one that matches your level of market knowledge and familiarity with products can be well suited for your requirements.

Direct Ownership

Gold bullion beats all forms of gold, as it is the basic representation of purity of gold. In the ancient past, deceased pharaohs were buried along with extensive quantities of gold by the Egyptian civilizations, because they believed that they would be useful for these people in life after death. In order to plunder stores of gold, many a war was fought. This affinity for the yellow metal is due to the faith that gold is the only form of real money whose worth will remain unchanged by government fiat. It is inevitable that the prices of gold will rise due to the supply-demand ratio.

As the tendency of gold is to trade with a wide spread between the bid and the ask prices, it presents a drawback as far as owning gold is considered and hence, one ought not to anticipate the reaping of its speedy profits. A considerable price jump is necessary when one buys gold at retailers and sells it at wholesale rates in order to touch the break-even point. Even then, one ought to consider gold as a shielding asset for its preservative value and not as a speculative asset. One can choose from one-ounce South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or American Eagles, for the ownership of gold minted coins.

Gold Exchange-Traded Funds or ETFs

This method of gold- investing is very exciting. The ETF is just like a mutual fund that trades on a stock exchange like an ordinary stock. As the exact portfolio of the ETF is fixed and unchangeable, gold bullion is the one and only asset of the two gold ETFs that trade in the U.S. and they provide for holding gold on one’s investment portfolio. These two Gold ETFs bear the symbol “GLD” (for the Street TRACKS Gold Trust) and “IAU” (for the iShares COMEX Gold Trust) respectively.

Gold Mutual Fund

Investing in gold mutual funds is a beneficial option to that for gold in the physical form or to owning cheap shares in young companies. The reason is that one can build an investment portfolio of stocks of gold mining companies like Newmont Mining, which is a sizeable, resourceful company, with a history for delivering profits; in short, a Senior gold stock company.

Junior Gold Stocks

There is a certain level of risk associated with investing in this gold stock as there is only a small likelihood of these stocks owning their own productive mines, but at the same time the probable profits are high. With capitalization lower than that for senior stocks, generally the people that prefer to invest in Junior Gold Stocks are well- prepared to take high risks in order to receive profound gains.

Gold Options and Futures

The Options market is quite complicated. Speculation in gold prices is done by the experienced and clever investor through Options in the following ways:

· By hoping that the prices will rise when he buys a call. The call fixes the purchase price such that the margin between his fixed option price and current margin price widens when the purchase price goes higher.

· By expecting that the price will fall when he buys a put.

The Pros

· A large investment can be controlled with relatively very less amount of money.

The Cons

· Buying options is many a time quite risky, with the probability of losses being more than gains.

Options expire within a certain fixed time frame. Hence, as only the very -experienced in this field understand the futures market, for the average investor, it is quite challenging to make decisions quickly and in the event that such decisions are taken in haste, they might prove to be wrong, befalling the investor with heavy losses.

The U.S. monetary system was removed from the gold standard by Nixon as a means to solve the current economic problem, but this led to long-lasting effects like trade deficits, increase in the federal debt and the power to print money round the clock in order to build a new credit-based economy. It also led to other countries of the world to go off the gold standard. With the fear of the U.S. dollar crashing in the near future, it is too late to blame the Federal Reserve for its money- printing strategy over the past so many years. Thus it is always a worrying factor for the investor that the future economy looks very depressing indeed. China being a partner in the U.S. economic affliction, the inevitable is yet delayed.

The Chinese debt is growing on the pretentious credit-based U.S. economy with the other Asian countries too, having to carry on with the charade. Once the U.S. dollar falls, many other countries will crumple as well. Commodities offer the offset; for example investing in oil stocks will be profitable because with the rising oil prices and the diminishing sources of oil, only those few companies that have their own drilling and exploration operations will be in great demand. So also will some other commodities.

Investing in tangible assets will be beneficial as far as future planning is taken into consideration. There is high demand from China for coal, iron ore, tungsten, copper, oil, and other metals and hence a bright future for investing in stocks of the same; with gold stocks topping the list.invest in gold

Paradoxically, the monetary policy follows a predictable pattern. History has shown us that whenever the U .S. government’s printing presses work overtime, the U.S. dollar crashes after a certain period. To combat the same, they have to return to gold, but after many monetary losses and lots of mental anguish caused to individuals. Presently we are going through this phase, thanks to the slipshod monetary policy. But do we have to wait for the final axe to fall? Can we not take appropriate action on an urgent basis in order to keep our investment portfolio secure with tangible assets; free of the meaningless fiat promises and the unstable principle of the U.S. monetary policy?

What is currency? It is only a promissory note; an IOU (I owe you) that is not assisted by any tangible value. We can pay for goods and services with only goods and services. After the limit of our national credit is reached, there will be no option but to withdraw the monetary policy. This will badly affect the savings of the traditional investors. The investors that stand to gain with the fall of the U.S. dollar are those who own portfolios of tangible goods, resources and precious metals.

source http://www.gold-stocks.com/ways-you-can-begin-to-invest-in-gold-for-future-growth/

Following Gold Share Prices – Selection of Sites

Whilst we publish a few of the leading US gold shares such as Agnico-Eagle Mines and Newmont Mining there are a lot of useful resources online where you can use tools to track and perform analysis on your Gold stock portfolio. Here are a selection of a few of the best we have found. Please note we are not affiliated with any of these suggestions and they are for reference purposes only.

USA Gold Stocks

Some of the big US stock sites offer excellent portfolio tools and news monitors. Obviously you have the big guns such as MarketWatch and TheStreet, but for those who are more focused on data rather than big news headlines then websites like BarChart.com offer a really sweet array of data that will be of use to any investor. Not only do they offer prices of Gold stocks but they also have a comprehensive futures section which shows Gold futures contracts for the whole year. In addition they offer charts and forecast tools which are really unique. We would suggest this as a go to resource for any investor in Gold.

UK Gold Shares

There are many small listed Gold mining shares on the London Stock Exchange. There are also some major players too, such as Anglo American and Fresnillo which is a large cap silver stock. There are some really nice useful sites for tracking your portfolios of UK shares. One of the oldest and most comprehensive is Interactive Investor. It has been around for a very long time, and although the format is now not as user friendly, they do have some excellent tracking features. Another decent website is LiveCharts.co.uk. The design is a bit limiting but they provide real time charts for Gold and Silver futures with some excellent indicators and analysis tools, you can also follow share prices on this site, and get a free portfolio to keep a watch on your investments.

Germany Shares

The largest by far is Finanzen. This site pretty much provides everything you need to track shares in Germany, including news and portfolio tools. It’s been around for well over a decade and is highly trusted. There are competitors which offer stocks, but this has to be the first stop for any investor.

source http://www.gold-stocks.com/following-gold-share-prices-selection-of-sites/

Online Investing in Stocks and How To Start With Brokers

Any investor who wishes to make use of an online stock broker – whether to take advantage of the decrease in fees, or to manage their own research – needs to be prepared for a significant difference from the world of traditional or discount brokers. First and foremost, stock investors must be prepared to manage their investments according to their own research, and they must be comfortable without a friendly voice at the other end of a telephone line. For all of their benefits, one area that stock brokers may be lacking is customer service!

The choice to select a broker for your investment portfolio makes a world of sense, and this is true whether you are dealing with a few thousand dollars… or even several millions of dollars. Some people may look down their noses at online brokerages because they charge a lesser fee for their services, and they don’t tend to be interested in chit-chat when taking orders on the phone or in person. This is not a bad thing, it’s simply business. It takes about the same amount of time for the brokerage to manage some stocks for any client, no matter how large or small the sum may be.

Those making use of a broker will usually have a wealth of information at their disposal, however. With online brokers there is often a glut of 24-hour information available for comparison and research, and investors can take full advantage of this to decide on their stock market strategies. With these tools ready and waiting, a savvy investor who understands this information and can apply it well will likely feel much more comfortable in dealing with an online broker. These investors know what they are looking for, how to accomplish their goals, and really need very little in the way of coaching or outside advice. However, newer (or less confident) investors who do not fully grasp all of the analysis at their fingertips might be more at ease with a traditional broker while learning the ropes a bit, and could later make the jump to an online broker.

The best advice for working with an online broker, then, is to learn the things you need to be successful as a stock investor. Once that knowledge has been gained, however short or long the time that it takes, then the future interaction with an online broker will be both streamlined and comfortable.

It can be tempting for individuals to consider moving away from an online broker as their net worth begins to grow, just because money managers seem to have a special cache for the wealthy. However, investors should ask themselves if this move “up the ladder” is always the best choice? It is not hard for people to become a bit “pound foolish”, as the British say, once they have more money to be managed. For many people, they can manage their sizeable accounts every bit as easily online as they did when they were just starting out. In fact, it may be even more satisfying.

Once an investor has learned how to research the stock market well, and has seen success with his or her efforts, is that really the time to start asking someone else how to do things? Sticking with an online broker – for the right reasons – can make all the sense in the world… even once the investments have really started to improve one’s quality of life!

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Gold Investing and Your IRA – Why You Should Look At Stocks

Central banks keep currency reserves so that they can purchase the domestic currency, which is considered a liability for the central bank since it prints the money or fiat currency as IOUs). Gold reserves are held in large quantity by many countries as a means of defending their currency, and hedging against the U.S. dollar, which makes up the bulk of liquid currency reserves.

Gold preserves wealth which is why countries hold large gold reserves, and why investors buy Gold stocks. If their own currency comes under attack, they can use their gold reserves to defend and protect the value of their own currency. A great example of this is Iran. International sanctions against Iran for their nuclear program caused the Iran’s paper currency, the rial, to plunge over 50% in value. Iran has started on an massive gold acquisition program to protect its rial currency. Turkey is Iran’s biggest natural gas customer, but Western sanctions prevent it from paying Iran in U.S. dollars or euros. Iran is instead paid in gold. Gold exports from Turkey to Iran jumped to $6.5 billion in the first 11 months of 2012 from just $54 million for all of 2011, as the United States tightened sanctions over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The U.S. State Department said in December that U.S. diplomats were in talks with Turkey over stopping the flow of gold to Iran. Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said last week that the gold sales to Iran would continue, saying the trade was carried out entirely by the private sector rather than between states and was not subject to sanctions.

Some are even speculating that Iran will try and accumulate enough gold to put its currency, the rial, on the gold standard thus defeating sanctions by the West aimed at destroying the value of its currency.

“Iran is very keen to increase the share of gold in its total reserves,” says Gokhan Aksu, vice chairman of Istanbul Gold Refinery, one of Turkey’s biggest gold firms. “You can always transfer gold into cash without losing value.” Think about that for a minute. This is exactly what you and I will be doing with our gold IRA investment one day. We accumulate gold now and when it’s time to pull it out when we retire, we will have the IRA custodian sell our gold and precious metals inside our IRA on the open market and send us the cash.

The West targeting Iran’s currency via restricting trade in euros and U.S. dollars is making Iran’s allies dump the U.S. dollar at an even faster rate. In most regions in the Middle East and certainly around Iran, the U.S. is viewed as an outsider, a bully if you will, affecting trade in their region via the bully U.S. dollar.

One of the unexpected, and unintended consequences of the draconian sanctions against Iran, is that Iran is forced to find alternative ways to buy and sell outside the hegemonic U.S. dollar based global financial system.

One such method is to pay for stuff, and accept payment in, gold.

And apparently, that is what is happening – as it has now been confirmed by Turkey that it is paying Iran in gold for natural gas.

This is a very interesting development, because as other regional players participate in this gold exchange, it creates an awareness that paying in the U.S. dollar or euro is not the only game in town and that with the gold trade, they can no longer be bullied by Europe or the U.S.

So again we see that gold preserves wealth.

China To Continue Buying Massive Amounts Of Gold For The Next 20 Years

China has doubled its gold reserves in the last five years but still holds much less gold than most other nations.

In a country-by-country comparison, the figure was 1.8 percent in China, while it was 76.6 percent in the United States, 73.7 percent in Germany and 71.8 percent in France, according to data from the World Gold Council and the International Monetary Fund.

Gold Reserves

China will be buying gold for many, many years as it pushes its gold reserves from 1.8 percent up to the 70 percent level inline with other developed countries around the world.

Gold Has Renewed Role In Global Monetary System

The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum report concluded, “Gold will increasingly have a renewed role in the global monetary system, attracting a higher level of attention from policy makers and financial market practitioners.”

We can see gold’s rise to dominance in the global financial system by looking at how central banks have bought more gold in 2012 than any time since the 1960s.

Remember, for the better part of the last 50 years central banks had been net sellers of gold. But all the central banks stopped selling gold altogether in 2009, instead becoming the net buyers they remain today.

Amount of gold purchased by central banks

The abrupt shift in policy was brought about by the global financial crisis that began in 2008.

The massive increase in the global money supply and the high level of systemic risk spawned by the crisis drove central banks to diversify their foreign reserves by buying gold.

The Bank of Korea increased gold reserves 20 percent last month. The bank added 14 metric tons in November, bringing the total to 84.4 tons, the bank said in a statement today. By value, holdings increased about $780 million to $3.76 billion, equivalent to 1.2 percent of total reserves, the bank said. “Gold is a physical, safe asset,” the Bank of Korea said in the statement. The precious metal “is a way of diversification, which helps reduce investment risk in terms of foreign-exchange reserves management,” it said.

The National Bank of Ukraine raised the percentage of gold in its reserves this year to 7.72 percent from 4.36 percent a year ago. Since the beginning of 2012, the amount of monetary gold in Ukraine’s international reserves had increased by 25.5 percent, or 230,000 troy ounces, to 1.13 million troy ounces. The bank said it is boosting its gold reserves “to avoid the negative impact of the global crisis on the economic development of the country as it works on diversifying the components of international reserves in Ukraine.”

Brazil doubled its gold holdings in two months, buying 17.2 metric tons in October and 14.7 metric tons in November of 2012.

In August and September of 2012, Iraq increased its gold reserves to 31.07 metric tons from 5.8 metric tons, a nearly 600% increase.

The central banks of the following countries showed increasing gold purchases in 2012: South Korea, The Philippines, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, Argentina, Ukraine, along with several others. The central banks are buying gold to reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar as a reserve asset. The purchases made by the central banks of developing countries have been increasing in recent years, as those nations diversify holdings, partly because of rising foreign-exchange reserves through export-led growth, but also, more recently, as a reaction to the sovereign-debt crises affecting traditional reserve currencies, like the U.S. dollar.

Gold is beginning to re-establish itself as part of the fabric of the financial system.

Gold’s fundamental property as a vehicle for capital preservation continues to endure. It does not matter whether you are talking about Iran trying to preserve its national wealth in the face of crippling sanctions, central banks trying to preserve their wealth against the sovereign debt crisis, governments trying to preserve their wealth against the falling value of their currencies, or you trying to build and preserve your personal wealth in your retirement account. The truth remains that there is no better way to preserve wealth than with physical gold. This confirms that a gold IRA investment is the best and only way to preserve wealth.

Somebody may have told you that learning how to invest in a gold IRA is complicated. If you look at the entire process and try to do it yourself, yes, it can be a little intimidating. But you don’t have to go it alone.

source http://www.gold-stocks.com/gold-investing-and-your-ira-why-you-should-look-at-stocks/