Foreign Perspectives

If you’d asked that question a year ago I’d have said that it’s too high now but it’s gone up around 30% since then. Five years ago and I’d have said the same but it’s more than doubled since then.

Of course, as with all investments, there is no truly right time to invest or at least not one that you’ll know about in advance. That said, there’s never a wrong time to begin a Gold investment programme if you approach it as an investment programme rather than a one time hit as some people do. The key thing is to stagger your investments just as you would in any other field of investment. That staggering has been something that’s historically been quite difficult to do in that in years gone by the investment unit tended to be a gold bar which obviously requires a serious commitment. However, all that has changed in recent years with the advent of smaller bars, safe storage facilities and wider availability of bullion coins. Thus you can almost treat it as any other phased investment these days, albeit with the smallest unit seemingly endlessly increasing in value, at least for now.

One thing to watch is that you don’t want to commit too high a chunk of your wealth to gold just as you shouldn’t commit too high a percentage to any asset class. Although gold prices have been on an upward path for quite some time now, that doesn’t mean that they’ll continue on that path forever. Sooner or later the prices will come down but by averaging your purchases over an extended period you should be in a good position to take advantage of the overall rise when that fall does arrive.

Popularity: 1% [?]

As always with government sponsored savings there’s a mix of an intention to address the savings plans to just about everyone and the ensuing complications that this makes which makes it that much more difficult to get over the ideas to such a diverse group of people.

Fortunately, the kiwisaver product has attracted the interest of those aiming to clear a way through all the jargon and identify the particular product that meets your needs. For example, the Kiwiselect asks a few basic questions (your age, your attitude to risk and your expectations as to how an investment should perform) before going on to identify investment funds that are aiming to meet those particular needs. I say aiming as none of the returns are guaranteed.

It’s a simple product selector which cuts the number of funds worth looking at to a manageable number (six came up in my case) and more importantly weeds out all those that wouldn’t fit with your investment personality.

Popularity: 1% [?]