This is one of the best investments since the outbreak of the crisis in 2008. At 1,709 dollars an ounce, the price of gold has doubled in five years, and increased by 8% in 2012 alone. The yellow metal has thus perfectly fulfilled its role as a safe haven and is back in the portfolio of savers, who are still reluctant to invest in risky investments.

Once you have set up your precautionary savings, with regulated booklets such as the Livret A and the Sustainable Development Booklet (LDD), an individual can very well spend up to 5% of his financial investments, according to the professionals.

Multiple Solutions To Diversify

However, the trend remains bullish over the long term, thanks in particular to sustained demand from emerging markets and a contained offer. In this matter you have to understand the global business management about gold.

Several solutions exist to diversify its heritage with precious metal

The first is to buy physical gold. Star of the market, the 1 kg ingot is obviously accessible only to the wealthy, because of its unit value higher than 42 000 euros. “It’s better to divide up your investment with, for example, small ingots, and, for coins, Napoleon wrasses and 20 Swiss francs, both of which are very liquid. The gold specialist CPOr Currencies also offers eight types of ingot weighing between 5 and 500 grams. “The most requested are small units like the 50 gram.

Do Not Choose Too Small Units

However, be careful not to choose too small units, whose price is higher than their fine gold value, especially because of the manufacturing costs higher than those of an ingot. At the purchase, a 50 gram ingot is worth, for example, nearly 5% more than its real weight of gold.

Apart from coins and bullion, it is also possible to invest in the yellow metal through financial products: besides speculative warrants and certificates, indexed on the gold price, the simplest is to choose the Gold Bullion Securities, an ETC (Exchange Traded Commodities) whose price follows that of the ounce of gold.

In practice, this product is bought on the stock market on Euronext Paris as an action, subject to payment of brokerage fees. It is backed by physical metal and its price replicates the variations of the price of a gold bullion, at the management fees (0.40%).

Finally, there are Sicavs invested in gold mines. While their performance is partly correlated with the gold price, it is primarily an investment in publicly traded equities, which are by definition more volatile. These funds therefore constitute good sector diversification in the context of a securities account; on the other hand, they do not have the virtues of safe haven of the yellow metal.