Tuesday 25 February 2020

Time to sell my gold bullion?

It might be a good time for me to check how much physical gold bullion I have sitting in my safe (I bought a few ounces way back in the 1980s or 1990s) and think about selling it off, as the combination of a lower Aussie dollar and spike in gold price has seen the price increase to around A$2,500 an ounce. Precious metals are generally a rather poor 'investment' as they cost money to store/insure, have relatively high buy/sell spreads (more similar to real estate than equities), and don't provide any income/dividend stream - so they are basically just a 'hedge' against inflation/hyperinflation or a counter-cyclical commodity play for those with a large investment in the share markets (having 2%-5% invested in bullion can improve overall portfolio diversification). So, if I don't sell my few ounces of gold now, while the price is unusually high, I may as well leave it sitting in my safe indefinitely and keep it for bartering purposes in some post-apocalyptic scenario (but in that situation tinned food or ammunition might have greater utility!).


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2 comments:

mOOm said...

I just bought some more of the IAU ETF :) My goal is to have about 10% of assets in gold. I haven't got up to that yet. But yeah maybe if you have a few ounces of physical gold you can sell.

mOOm said...

I just bought another 1000 shares of the IAU ETF. Aim is to have 10% of assets in gold and I'm not there yet. But if you have a few ounces of physical gold maybe you can sell.