by: Jakob Jelling
Gold investing is a low-risk type of long-term investment.
Gold is slightly more risky than bonds, so you should be careful to pay attention to this. The reason for this is that while gold is used in some industries, it does not necessarily need to be worth as much money as it is. Also, part of the reason that gold is worth so much money is due to its comparative rarity. If the markets were to become flooded, chances are good that you would lose money. However, gold has a tendency to stay relatively stable, or to increase its value, over time.
How stable is gold investing? Well, the demand for gold is much higher than its supply. As you can tell, this is already good for people who are thinking about gold investing. Once there is more supply than demand, the price starts to rise. Since the demand for gold is almost twice the amount that is actually mined, the prices for gold are likely to go up steadily.
This also means that it is still a good time to invest in gold. The reason for that is that prices for gold need to go up so that there is not a gold shortage in the world. (After all, the increase in prices will decrease the demand until finally, there is no more gold shortage).
The first thing that you should keep in mind about gold investing, is that you should not put all of your money into one type of gold investment. You should also not just go out and buy a bunch of physical gold. While this is a good way to build a solid and insured foundation, you should also be investing in some of the other parts of the gold industry. For instance, if you invest in gold mines that are not producing at their top amount yet, or in potential gold mines, you stand a chance of making more money in the future.
Since gold is in such high demand, it is likely that any gold mines that are not producing much will start trying to produce more - so that they can cash in on the high demand and higher prices as well.
A good reason for investing in gold mines instead of just in physical pieces of gold, is that if you only invest in physical gold, it's more likely that it can be stolen from you, at which point you will lose your entire investment.