Many people are wondering if they should invest in gold because of the financial meltdown and modern high gold prices.
The first issue people should know is that there is no such as a foolproof investment.
You can lose money on any property including gold.
There have been times in the past; such as the 1980s, when gold fell sharply in price and was a lousy investment.
So gold is not as reliable as some of the TV pitchmen say it is.
Gold like, any commodity, can be a extremely risky venture that can be difficult to remove.
A person should only invest in a commodity like gold if they have a fairly large amount of money that they can afford.
People living on limited budgets should probably avoid gold and switch to more liquid investments such as stocks.
Those who have the resources to invest in gold have two basic choices buying gold in a form they can save themselves or on hold by someone else.
Most serious investors will need to buy gold that is on hold by a bank or other facility.
In this situation, the gold kept in a vault somewhere and the investor owns shares in it.
The advantage to these arrangements is that the holding group takes care of the task of storing the gold.
The disadvantage to these deals is that the person does not have a solid distribution of gold they can handle themselves.
Those who want to use gold as an investment would be well advised to take advantage of such deals.
Two excellent gold companies are the Perth Mint and Gold Money.
The Perth Mint in Australia is a resource that stores gold for investors.
Gold Money allows people to buy shares in gold stored in vaults in Switzerland and Great Britain.
Gold Money shares can be directly traded or sold, so they have the advantage of liquidity.
Many people are interested in gold because they need a valuable asset they can capture and protect themselves.
Some people will want to keep gold around because they are afraid that inflation could impair the value of currencies such as the US dollar.
The best choice for such people would be to buy gold coins, which are small, and easy to keep.
A big advantage to gold coins is they can easily be sold or pawned for extra money in emergency situations.
A disadvantage is that keeping valuables like coins in your house can give you a target for crooks, for those worried about the economy and have some extra money keeping a few gold coins in the house would be a excellent idea.
An alternative to coins would be to keep the gold in the form of jewelry which can also be sold or pawned in emergency situations.
An asset to jewelry is that people especially the ladies can wear it and bring it with themselves.
One risk that all gold investors should be aware is that the Federal government might try to stop the private ownership of gold.
This happened in 1933 during the Great Depression.
The ban on private ownership of gold other than jewelry and coins was in effect until the 1970s.
Although such a ban is unlikely today, it could be reinstated in a period of economic crisis.