Graham Bentley: Fool's gold

Allure depends on demand

clock • 4 min read

Graham Bentley counsels advisers to be careful about buying into the current trend for gold and, to support that warning, offers a brief recap of its investment attributes - or lack of them

In spite of the constant reminders that we are in a ‘low return environment', investors and their advisers may find themselves looking back over the last eight years and wondering what all the gloom was about. It has been pretty difficult to lose money. It is now more than 100 months since the Bank of England introduced quantitative easing (QE) in March 2009 and remarkable annualised returns have been enjoyed by every Investment Association fund sector. At the same time, the risk was way below historic averages - the average global equity fund volatility over the period equates to a r...

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