Market fluctuation…this is not a pleasant phrase for anyone hoping to enjoy a bit of financial stability after the turmoil of the past few years. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is happening all over the world, and it is a major reason for investing in precious metals.
Understanding the Situation
When traditional investment vehicles are no longer considered reliable or even low in risk, it becomes important to find a way to protect wealth and assets. This is even more important when issues such as inflation seem to be hovering around the edges too.
Why? Earlier in 2013, a few large governments began “recalling” their gold. This was gold that had been leased to other governments (such as the gold leased to the United States by Germany). This gold recall shows that the American dollar is about to lose even more value, and that means that inflation is a persistent threat.
Additionally, many investors fearing the lack of stability in traditional vehicles such as stocks or bonds decided to take the safest route possible and put their assets into fixed income investments. If inflation does indeed arise, even these investments lose much of their staying power and will generate much lower returns.
Why Investing in Precious Metals Makes Sense
So, with all of that in front of them, investors around the world have been trying to find safer havens in which to direct at least a substantial percentage of their assets. This has led many to investing in precious metals as the smartest move possible.
When someone does a lot of investing in precious metals, it allows them a few layers of protection. While it rarely means they will enjoy rapid growth, it does mean that they have reduced the chances of any loss or risk, and that they will instead enjoy the slow and steady growth that only investing in precious metals has ever guaranteed.
Precious metals can be easily confused with an investment in a luxury commodity. That, however, is never the case because investing in precious metals means that you are tapping into a market that is usually very stable and not tied to any luxury market.
As an example, those currently investing in silver are not doing so because it is something that is demand exclusively as a metal used in jewelry and expensive household goods. They are opting to direct assets towards the purchase of silver because it is a metal in heavy demand from industries around the world. In addition, it is this that makes precious metals an almost sure thing.
The Multiple Markets
When something has a single stream of attention – such as a stock – its success or failure as an investment is tied to this stream of interest. Precious metals, on the other hand, are something that holds the attention of many different groups.
Precious metals are in demand from investors. They are also something of intense interest to global industries of many kinds, including medicine, automotive manufacturing, electronics, and more. Precious metals are also part of the banking and financial industries, and the investors around the world.
That is a lot of “demand” for what adds up to be a very limited “supply”. Because there is nothing in the modern market as reliable as precious metals, millions of people are investing in them in many ways. This puts even further pressures on the available supplies and makes them even more valuable in the portfolio.
When economies struggle, markets fluctuate, and currencies lose value, the one smart step to take is to put assets into safe havens. The oldest way of doing this is to purchase precious metals such as gold and silver.
