Gold has fascinated human beings since the dawn of time. Precious metal par excellence, embodies solidity, permanence, and commitment. The most incorruptible of noble metals because insensitive to oxidation, it symbolizes luxury, wealth, and eternity. It is used in arts and crafts as well as in industry and medicine, but above all, it is a great investment.
My favorite investments are real estate, life insurance, and the retirement savings plan. Today we present to you the ultimate, purest, most beautiful long-lasting investment: investment gold.
A Mystical Nature
According to the economist Jacques ATTALI, in an interview published in Le Monde Diplomatique in August 2015: “the 21st century only really began on September 11, 2001, it is about entering an unstable and multipolar world”. It is therefore not surprising to note the exponential increase in the price of investment gold since the beginning of the 2000s, with peaks in 2011 and 2020 because it is to it that we turn in times of crisis.
The price of the yellow metal should therefore not fall in the future due to the scarcity of this product. According to estimates, 145 kilotons of gold have already been extracted since the origins, of which 120 kilotons exist in the form of ingots and jewelry.
If the nature of gold remains partly mysterious, gold has an extra-terrestrial origin which reinforces its myth a little more: it would be the product of the explosion of stars having struck the Earth. Exploitable reserves are therefore not renewable. The main producing countries are South Africa, the United States, Australia, Russia, Canada, Peru, Ghana, and China.
Investing In Gold: An Investment Must-Have
Investment gold is presented, rightly, as intended to protect part of the value of one’s heritage. It is particularly useful when preparing for retirement. Many economists and wealth management specialists recommend having 10-20% gold in your investment portfolio.
Gold is also correlated with inflation: when inflation rises, gold rises mechanically. Traditional assets (stocks, real estate, etc.) carry a significant amount of risk, rapid loss of value, inflation, speculative bubble, etc. A true safe haven, gold is therefore a safe complement to stocks and bonds, whose prices can very strongly vary within a few minutes.
The purchase of gold, physical or paper, is not taxed (not even VAT). On sale, physical gold is taxed, depending on the amount of the transaction, by a fixed tax on precious metals or capital gains. A reduction is applied according to the duration of detention. About paper gold, its taxation under capital gain follows the same principles as the sale of shares.
How To Buy Gold?
Gold can be obtained in two ways. The first is the purchase of physical gold (bars, ingots, wafers, coins, etc.) To be considered investments, these elements must have a purity of at least 995 thousandths and a weight greater than one gram. The investor thus has the gold in a tangible, palpable way and he can dispose of it as soon as he needs it.
Gold is relatively easy to resell. As we have seen, it protects against inflation thanks to its countercyclical movement. This investment is considered and used as a form of insurance: in the event of a need for cash, the release of funds will be rapid.
The second option is the purchase of paper gold which can take the form of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), such as the iShares Gold Bullion ETF from American BlackRock (one of the largest asset managers in the world). , or the actions of gold mines or SICAVs specialized in gold. Note: in the case of paper gold, the investor does not physically hold the gold. These products reflect the evolution of the price of gold, so there is no capital guarantee. These products not always be correlated with a stock of physical gold, it, therefore, turns out that the investment here loses its character as a safe haven.
Investment in paper gold should not be taken lightly, because, unlike physical gold which remains a real long-term savings product, paper gold is a listed product reserved for the public. experimented.
