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Should you convert your cash savings to gold?
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Gold as an investment vehicle has withstood the test of time. Human beings have sought out the precious metal for thousands of years, and the interest in gold investing only seems to be growing. If demand for gold continues to tick upward, the price of gold is also likely to increase.
Right now, though, inflationary conditions are also driving down the value of the dollar. So, it can be difficult to protect your cash from losing buying power.
Considering that inflation remains persistent in today’s economic environment, you may be wondering if it’s smart to convert all of your cash savings into gold. In short, the answer is probably not, but it could be wise to invest some of your money in the precious metal. Here’s what you need to know.
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Should you convert your cash savings to gold?
There are a few reasons you may want to think twice about converting all of your cash savings to gold. For starters, your cash is an important source of funding when emergencies happen. Although gold is liquid, you may not be able to turn it into cash immediately — limiting your funding options when emergencies do happen. And, financial markets are cyclical. That means there are positive and negative cycles to consider. If you need your money when gold is on a downward trend, you could face significant losses.
Then again, it can be smart to invest some of your money in the yellow metal. But, “less than 5-10% of a portfolio should be gold,” says Alex Blackwood, CEO and co-founder of Mogul Club. “You can hedge inflation, but when looking for higher returns, look to something with equity value.”
Find out how easy it is to add gold to your portfolio today.
Reasons to add gold to your investment portfolio
You probably shouldn’t convert all of your cash to gold, but there are also clear reasons why you may want to add some of the precious metal to your investment portfolio. These include:
Gold is a diversification tool
Gold has little in common with assets you would normally find in an investment portfolio – assets like stocks and bonds. As a result, when stocks and bonds fall in value, investors tend to rush to gold in an effort to keep their portfolios safe. That uptick in demand usually sends gold’s price up – making it possible for gains in the precious metal to offset losses in other assets.
This diversification value often means that when you invest in gold, you’re able to increase your portfolio’s risk-adjusted returns.
Gold offers a hedge against inflation
Inflation can be detrimental to your investment portfolio. After all, if your money doesn’t produce a return that’s at least equal to the rate at which prices are rising, it could be losing buying power. Unfortunately, many safe-haven investments — especially those with interest-based returns — fail to keep up with inflation.
Gold is a unique safe haven asset because it acts as an inflation hedge. This is due to gold’s historical tendency to climb in value when the dollar falls. So, the precious metal may help you maintain the value in your portfolio during periods of high inflation.
Gold’s price could tick higher ahead
With prices hovering around $2,030 per ounce, gold is trading near record highs. That’s a clear indicator that there’s demand for the precious metal. And, that’s important because the economic principle of supply and demand is a leading factor in the growth of the price of gold.
Should demand continue to tick upward, the price of gold is likely to follow. So, adding the precious metal to your portfolio now allows you to take advantage of any potential gains ahead.
The bottom line
It’s probably not a good idea to convert all of your cash savings to gold. After all, doing so could make accessing cash a challenge if and when an emergency arises. On the other hand, chances are that you could benefit from allocating at least some of your investment assets to the precious metal. Compare your gold investing options to add the precious metal to your investment portfolio now.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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