Gold Investment Seen As Wise Strategy

Amid continued economic skepticism, gold futures prices showed new life after nearly three weeks of decline.  In early January, January 3rd to be exact, gold prices reached record highs at over $1422 per ounce.  Since then, prices have been dropping due to a wide variety of factors, including a growing optimism about a long-awaited escape from the recession, which had driven investors to equities and commodities with greater risk.  But a lack of news about the economy and a belief that physical demand for gold will continue to grow have driven greater interest in the precious metal and caused investors to view it as a bargain.  There is little belief on economic fronts that gold will skyrocket in price in the near future; thus, it seems to be a wise investment at the present.  Larry Young, president of Covenant Trading, LLC, recently said that many participants “are looking at this [gold investment] as a bargain.” That weakness in gold prices is why many are buying the precious metal, particularly those in Asian markets.  But the weak American dollar has also acted as a catalyst, igniting the demand for gold and other dollar-backed investments in markets that use other forms of currency.  And despite a rise in the stability of the Euro, many European investors are holding onto their gold assets, still uncertain of what the future holds.  Like other precious metals, gold has always been a refuge or safe haven investment, and that promises to hold true until the world’s economies show more life and growth and investors begin to lose their feelings of skepticism about the economy.