The best Year for Gold Prices Ever was 2006

2006 proved to be the greatest year for metals including Gold. Gold specifically had a huge swing in the than the yearly prices indicated below.

Gold prices had risen much more quickly than expected in the first quarter of the year 2006 but then struggled a bit. It was then expected to top $600 but then it actually rise to $730 and then came down and settled below 650. The downhill for these prices became convincingly uphill in November. This year it is expected to meet the last year’s high of $730.

What is does the Gold Price state:

Well the basic idea is that the value of gold does not actually change much. What actually changes is the amount of electronic money or cash needed to buy some unit amount of gold, which usually is measured as USD which is US Dollars per ounce. What does this really mean? What is really happening here?

As a matter of fact if you back in history like some 200 years ago you will observe that the value of gold over this period of time has hardly changed at all if compared to the value of other goods. Like for example if you have one ounce of gold and with that one ounce of gold today you will be able to purchase almost the same amount of stuff as you were able to 50 years back. The actual change is because of the recession, inflation and because of which the value of the currency not the value of gold. So we come back to our point that what is responsible for the rise in the gold price over the time.

Gold Prices over the Past Century:

If you look over the past one hundred years from 19^th century through to the 20^th century, the price of gold was almost unwavering and remained constant with a steady rise from 19 US dollars an ounce to 38 US dollars an ounce.

But towards the last quarter of the 20^th century there was a overwhelming jump in the gold price to $175 per ounce! This was stated by the experts as a huge jump over a couple of years, and it did not stay stable at this huge price, in 1980 there was again a tremendous amount of surge in the prices where it was recorded as $640 per ounce! Now this is unpredictable isn’t it! But wait there is more to come, in 1985 however the price tumbled down $250 to $450 range, which is almost half to what it was 5 years back. But then after that it slowly but surely kept on rising till date and the price for the year 2006 end you can see in the above table.

Gold over Cash:

Does this state that there is less confidence in the currency if compared to gold?  Or is it that people tend to show more preference to own something real solid than cash?

It was recently observed and stated that if the US regress back to a gold backed currency model then, with the immense quantity of currency ($) printed and the magnitude of the currency cycle, it would have taken $52,000 to buy one ounce of gold! Which evidently shows that because of the gold price generally people are more confident in purchasing and keeping gold rather than currency which on the contrary for the gold owners is a great news. So with the present unstable economic world people will seek to something more stable. And gold as you can now clearly observe has a tradition of staying unwavering so people are willing to pay whatever the gold price is as an investment.

What Kind of Gold to Buy:

For any kind of Gold enthusiast, what kind of gold to buy is a very important decision. As for the price you can see above that gold has the tendency to increase its worth in currency so buying and investing in gold is a good option. There are many ways of buying or investing in gold. It can be by buying actual gold in different forms like which are also known as Gold Bullions:

1. Gold Bars
2. Gold Coins
3. Gold Sovereigns
4. Krugerrands

Where to find the best deals on Krugerrands: www.Krugerrands.org

Apart from actual gold, investment in gold can be done in IPOs  and stocks in mining companies or gold futures, having gold accounts.

Now investment other than gold bullions like in stocks and gold accounts is a much more tedious procedure and you have to be a gold speculator or follower. Its not for people who do it as a hobby. For this a person needs to be or have a good and trust worthy commodity broker. And additionally there are the taxes involved, so gold bullions is for the collector and hobbyists.  So if you want to be relaxed with your gold investment and for a long term investments without any tensions then gold bullions is for you!