the-5-best-ways-to-invest-in-gold

1. Direct ownership. There is nothing like gold bullion, the ultimate expression of pure value. Historically, many civilizations have recognized the permanence of gold’s value. For example, Egyptian civilizations buried vast amounts of gold with deceased pharaohs in the belief that they would be able to use it in the afterlife. Great wars were fought, among other reasons, to pillage stores of gold. Why the allure? The answer: Gold is the only real money, and its value cannot be changed or controlled by government fiat-the underlying reason for governments to go off the gold standard, unfortunately.Gold’s value will rise based on the pure forces of supply and demand, no matter what Mr. Greenspan decrees regarding interest rates or greenbacks in circulation. The big disadvantage to owning gold is that it tends to trade with a wide spread between bid and ask prices. So don’t expect to turn a fast profit. You’ll buy at retail and sell at wholesale, so you’ll need a big price jump just to break even. However, you should not view gold as a speculative asset, but a defensive asset for holding value. Since your dollars are going to fall in value, gold is the best place to preserve value. The best forms for gold ownership are through minted coins: one-ounce South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or American Eagles. 2. Gold exchange-traded funds. The recent explosion in exchange traded funds (ETFs) presents an even more interesting way to invest in gold. An ETF is a type of mutual fund that trades on a stock exchange like an ordinary stock. The ETF’s exact portfolio is fixed in advance and does not change. Thus, the two gold ETFs that trade in the United States both hold gold bullion as their one and only asset. You can locate these two ETFs under the symbol “GLD” (for the streetTRACKS Gold Trust) and “IAU” (for the iShares COMEX Gold Trust). Either ETF offers a practical way to hold gold in an investment portfolio. 3. Gold mutual funds. For people who are hesitant to invest in physical gold, but still desire some exposure to the precious metal, gold mutual funds provide a helpful alternative. These funds hold portfolios of gold stocks-that is, the stocks of companies like Newmont Mining that mine for gold. Newmont is an example of a senior gold stock. A senior is a large, well-capitalized company that has been around several years and has a profitable track record. They tend to own established mines that produce known quantities of gold each year. For many investors, selection of such a company is a more moderate or conservative play (versus picking up cheap shares in fairly young companies). 4. Junior gold stocks. This level of stock is more speculative. Junior stocks are less likely to own productive mines, and may be exploration plays-with higher potential profits but also with greater risk of loss. Capitalization is likely to be smaller than capitalization of the senior gold stocks. This range of investments is for investors whose risk tolerance is broader, and who accept the possibility of gold-based losses in exchange for the potential for triple-digit gains. 5. Gold options and futures. For the more sophisticated and experienced investor, options allow you to speculate in gold prices. But in the options market, you can speculate on price movements in either direction. If you buy a call, you are hoping prices will rise. A call fixes the purchase price so the higher that price goes, the greater the margin between your fixed option price and current market price. When you buy a put, you expect the price to fall. Buying options is risky, and more people lose than win. In fact, about three-fourths of all options bought expire worthless. The options market is complex and requires experience and understanding. To generalize, options possess two key traits-one bad and one good. The good trait is that they enable an investor to control a large investment with a small, and limited, amount of money. The bad trait is that options expire within a fixed period of time. Thus, for the buyer time is the enemy because as the expiration date gets closer, an option’s “time value” disappears. Anyone investing in options needs to understand all of the risks before they spend money. The futures market is far too complex for the vast majority of investors. Even experienced options investors recognize the high risk nature of the futures market. Considering the range of ways to get into the gold market, futures trading is the most complex and, while big fortunes could be made, they can also be lost in an instant.