Plenty of commercials on Fox suggesting that Gold is the best investment ever!
However, the commercials are often narrated by some silly, sensationalistic bs rhetoric. Still, I haven’t bothered to look into it yet, so perhaps Gold really is a safe investment.
What say ye, fellow Dopers?
Best investment for what purpose?
Personally, I think the best investment for general survival is to create and be part of a strong, resilient society that looks ahead… but so many investors seem to think purely in monetary terms, forgetting that money is useless without a mutually-accepted system of laws and contracts to function in.
Ah, but they’re not actually pitching gold per se as a great investment, they’re pitching gold from one of their main sponsors, Goldline, as a great investment. Of course, it’s not. Buying gold at several hundred dollars per ounce above melt price is a bad investment no matter how you frame it.
Gold is a terrible investment. It pays no interest, and its value(after taking out short term fluctuations) has been essentially constant for hundreds, thousands, of years. An ounce of gold bought 1 nice rifle 100 years ago, it bought a nice rifle 200 years ago, and today it still just buys 1 nice rifle today, gold has not appreciated at all. 5 ounces of gold would buy one new nice car in the Roaring 1920’s, and today , 90 years later, 5 ounces of gold will still only buy one new car. Gold never changes. Gold is an investment dud.
The only thing gold is good at, is preserving wealth. I bought most of my gold at $300.00 when it became likely that bush would become president knowing him to be the liberal he was giving us huge deficits and inflation. I bought a lot more gold when it looked like obama would make things worse, and obama DID made things much worse.
My gold has not went up in value at all over the past 12 years (after factoring out inflation), although the value of the dollar has went substantially down. When bush got elected the US dollar was worth 1/300th of an ounce of gold. Today, a gold investment has done absolutely nothing for 12 years except keep up with the value of the dollar, and the super inflated US dollar is now only worth 1/1600th of an ounce of gold.
Do not buy gold as an investment, gold just sits there and does nothing. The value of gold is a “constant”, gold will never go up, gold will never increase your wealth.
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I think if you bought gold at $300 an ounce 10 years ago and sold it today at $1500 an ounce then I would say that was a good investment. If you buy it today at $1500 an ounce and it goes up to $5000 an ounce, and then you sell, that sounds like quite a profit too.
Gold CAN be used as an investment just like anything else. Buy low and sell high. But, just like any other investment, you have to buy and sell at the right time.
Also, gold has never been worth 0. It always has some value/worth. However, you can’t eat it, burn it for fuel or use it for shelter. But you masy be able to use it to purchase those things.
Susanann, have you ever debated Susanann on this topic?
Quoth NOLA Cajun:
Would you say that someone bought a lottery ticket for $1 yesterday and redeemed it for $1 million today made a good investment?
I think the fact that they’re advertising (i.e., pushing) gold as an investment should tell you something. And that is that you shouldn’t be buying it.
Nope! You are talking about commodity trading, not investing.
“Trading”, by frequently buying low and selling high, is not investing, whether you buy and sell gold, silver, copper, pork bellies, used cars, or residential homes. Trading is more like gambling, and most people lose when they trade and most people lose when they gamble.
Mathematically, the best one can ever hope for that can happen in the long run by “trading” in gold is to break even. Gold’s value will never increase no matter how long you trade it, or hold it.
No. I would not say that. It was a “gamble”. The Lottery is a gamble, not an investment. Also, unlike trading in a constant like gold, most people lose when they gamble/buy lottery tickets.
You’ve previously said that you sold gold at various points, such as (as I remember) when Reagan was elected. If you really believed it was just a store of wealth, you’d be buying it all the time and just holding it indefinitely.
I did not make anything. My gold is still essentially worth what it was. The only thing I accomplished was that my wealth was preserved while bush and obama were in office spending money like drunken sailors.
(no offense to all the otherwise fine Navy people out there)
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“Gold is a great investment” says thousands of companies seemingly willing to part with lots of it in exchange for regular currency. Generally, whenever you hear about something being a great investment on TV and the radio, its time as a great investment is pretty much over.
When you bought your gold for $300, was one nice new car selling for $1500? Hell, are new cars selling for $8000 now? Five ounces of gold from the 1920s don’t seem to be keeping pace.
Gold has its ups and downs, just like any other commodity. Unlike other commodities though, only a sliver of gold’s value is due to actual productive use, so most of its value is due to its speculative value, which goes up when times are uncertain, and down when they’re not.
I bought gold when Nixon took us off the gold standard. I held gold during the 1970’s. I sold gold when it became evident that Reagan would come in and fix everything that Nixon and Carter messed up. I bought gold again when bush became president, and I bought more when the Community Organizer became president.
I bought gold twice. I sold gold once. That is not “buying all the time”.
I have held gold for 12 years now, and I will continue to hold it until it becomes evident that a new Congress and a new president are certain to balance the federal budget as an ongoing policy.
This is not rocket science. It is very elementary. It is very easy to understand folks. One does not have to be very smart to see that never-ending trillion dollar deficits will be bad.
Gold is not an investment. Gold is** money**. Gold is wealth. Gold is also a commodity. The commodity part of gold WILL short term fluctuate. The “price” of gold denominated in any particular paper currency will also fluctuate depending on the changing value of that particular currency from day to day.
(If it makes you feel better, then change my example to use** 5-10** ounces of gold which would buy a new car in the 1920’s, in the 1930’s, in the 1970’s, and in 2012. I am not going to debate you on trivialities. If you cant get the major point then you will have to debate the inconsequential off-the-subject with others)
Gold is less an investment than a speculation.
Buy a CD or a bond, and you’l get interest. Buy blue chp stocks and you’’ get dividends.
Buy gold and… well, maybe the price will go up and you can sell it for a big profit. Or maybe the price will plummet and you’ll lose a bundle.
In that regard, buying gold is no different from (and no better than) buying coffee beans or buying old comic books.
Beans and paper comic books are perishable, and they self destruct. Gold is forever.
Greek bonds pay 25%
FWIW, the rifles have gotten nicer and nicer in that time. 
On a more serious note, the news folks recently reported that gold was trading at its highest price ever. While it’s possible (even likely) that gold will go higher at some time in the future, the “buy low/sell high” dictum suggests that buying right now - when gold is selling at its highest price ever - is probably not a wise choice.
“It appears you are confusing your history, Mr. Bond.”