How to Invest in Gold

As I go about building up my investment portfolio, I decided that it would be apt to include gold into my collection. I acknowledge the fact that there are other options for getting your hands on this asset. However, in this article, I am going to present my thoughts on investing in gold from the perspective of an average investor.


Why Invest in Gold

Gold is seen traditionally as a safe haven when the stock market is in turmoil. When there is high volatility in the stock market, the participants back off to get their hands on gold. Such behaviour is apparent such that it is known that gold has a low correlation with other assets and investors routinely uses gold to hedge against inflation. Gold is also used a tool for diversification and was conferred the highest honour of being a currency in its own right - the Gold Standard.

Best Free Mobile Apps for Investing

Being based in Asia, having a full time job and not being able to access to my spreadsheets at work means having mobile apps that provides not only numbers, but also relevant news in the market so that I can access news on the go and be prepared when the trading session opens at night in Asia (morning in EST).

Here are a few of the mobile apps that I have tried. I acknowledge that the mobile apps have a desktop version which provides more offerings at a glance. However, for this article I am only going to review the mobile version. Feel free to leave your comments if you agree or think otherwise or if there are better mobile applications out there. 

Forex (FX) Basics

Currency Pairs

USD/ SGD

USD = base currency

SGD = quote currency

i.e Buy USD, sell SGD

Minimum Price Increment: 0.00001 ( 0.1 pip)

Settlement: T+2

e.g USD.SGD 1.3703 means 1 USD is worth 1.3703 SGD
So the ideal rate is 1:1   ie. Using 1 SGD to exchange for 1 USD