Steady does it with gold

Yesterday’s blog generated five posted comments. It could be the basis for an ongoing exchange of ideas and some thought-provoking reader analysis going forward.

It just goes to prove how interesting gold is. Collectors have an advantage. They don’t need any hype to appreciate it. Their interest is probably embedded in their DNA.

Collectors continued to give the precious metal their attention even during market lows when the hot money investment crowd was singing the praises of tech stocks or real estate.

But the most critical lessons that collectors know is that the price of gold fluctuates. It is not a rocket ride straight up.

Sure, there are periods where it seems so. Those buyers still scrambling to buy physical gold coins might be less inclined to buy them today if they thought there was a possibility of a pause or correction in the uptrend.

Collectors know that despite the many reasons to own some gold, they don’t want to get carried away.

Anybody who bought gold at $850 a troy ounce in January 1980 is still at break even. Bad timing can happen to anybody. By spreading out purchases over a collecting lifetime, gold coins purchased at the high will be offset by those coins purchased at low points, such as when the metal was trading around $260 in 2001.

A steady interest in gold is far better than trading on the basis of cyclical expectations of apocalypse.