Gold as a Currency in Your Portfolio

Director of Investment Research for World Gold Council speaks on gold as currency...

JUAN-CARLOS ARTIGAS manages the Global Investment Research team at the World Gold Council, the global authority on gold-related research.

Providing oversight of research initiatives related to investor portfolios, he is a regular presenter at industry conferences and is a sought-after speaker for institutional and private investors who seek his expertise on the strategic case for gold.

Speaking with me this week in my regular podcast interview, Juan-Carlos and I discussed: 

Looking at the size and liquidity of the gold market, "Understanding gold as a currency is easier," said Juan Carlos Artigas.

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"It makes more sense in portfolios when you consider it a currency. We do think that gold stands completely apart from commodities. The gold market is extremely liquid. According to the London Bullion Market Association, gold trades $240 billion a day. To put it in perspective, all of the Dow Jones combined trades at $20 billion a day. Gold trades more than 10 x the Dow in a day. It is not officially a currency but it is treated as such in many cases." 

Going on, Juan Carlos Artigas of the World Gold Council said that "We don't look at gold in isolation, rather we look at the benefits that gold brings to all investments, stocks, bonds, real estate or other alternatives.  We have found through our research that holding 2-10% of gold in a portfolio reduces volatility and losses in times of systemic failure of equity and fixed income markets.

"We found that investors holding gold in times of systemic losses alone reduced losses 7.5%..."