Gold can be a great investment! Gold is a tool that needs to be used in your portfolio for its intended purpose, which would be different for every person. You need the right tool for the right job. Sure gold can be used in anyone’s portfolio as an inflation hedge, but gold can do much more for you than that.

Gold is firstly financial insurance; to hedge your portfolio during times of financial setbacks suffered by paper assets i.e. a falling dollar or a collapsing stock market. However gold can also be added to any portfolio for the following reasons:

1. High inflation, or the fear of high inflation

2. A decline in the U.S. dollar or other key world currencies

3. Turmoil in stock markets

4. Spiking interest rates

5. Oil and other commodity price shocks

6. Banking crises

7. International loan defaults and other debt crises

8. Geopolitical crisis

Gold in your portfolio can offset losses during down times or can even grow during prosperous times. Gold has gone from $252 per ounce in July of 1999 to $1,050 per ounce where it currently is today. That is over a 300% gain in 10 years! Some of this thriving came during the dot com bust, but some of it came while the Dow was climbing from 7,286 in October of 2002 to 14,164 in October of 2007 where it topped out.

There are a couple different ways that you can own physical gold; there is gold bullion and U.S. rare coins also called numismatics. These two types will provide different tools for you portfolio. You can acquire for strictly asset protection, or you can acquire for growth. You should consult a professional gold consultant to help you determine what will work best for your goals and budgetary parameters. Like I said earlier each person is different so working with a professional is highly recommended. As for the question is gold a good investment, I think the performance over the last 10 years speaks for itself. Many experts agree that gold will continue to rise in the future.