What Exactly Are Hard Assets?
Hard assets are called hard assets because, well, they’re typically hard! These assets include gold, silver, and diamonds, which are all very desirable in times of economic hardship and turmoil. A lot of investors prefer them to other types of investments, and advocate for diversifying your portfolio with hard assets, because they make for the perfect hedge against inflation, designed to withstand economic hard times. There’s even a radio show about investing in physical hard assets call “The Real Money Show”, where investors talk about market fundamentals, as well as the economic factors that affect gold, silver and diamonds.
Gold – The Top Performer During Financial Crises
If you recall the financial crash, and subsequent recession of 2008, you’ll remember that the regular stock market performed poorly at the time. But, there was one asset that didn’t sink, one that outperformed all the others: gold, which gained at a rate of 32% during the recession years. This was a tough time for everybody, but gold was able to maintain it’s massive boom in the markets.
Silver is an Undervalued Asset
Gold is currently priced at over $1600 Canadian, per ounce, but a more affordable yet undervalued option is silver, which is priced just over $20 per ounce, making it an undervalued precious metal. And since it also has plenty of applications across a wide set of industries, which drives its demand up,silver is very desirable to investors.
Silver Has Plenty of Industrial Uses
There’s probably have an example of an industrial use for silver in your own home, one that you look at and use every day. Silver is used to make the mirror on your wall; it’s used to solder the components in your PC or your phone together; and even the medical industry uses it for pharmaceutical products, for diagnostic equipment, and more. There are thousands and thousands of uses for silver in the industrial sector.
Hard Assets Stable During Tough Times
These hard assets also tend to be very stable as inflation runs its course, and many investors decide to purchase these assets just to serve as a hedge against inflation. You’ve probably witnessed the effect of inflation in your day-to-day life, as the goods you purchase on a daily basis have gotten more and more expensive – you can offset those losses by investing in gold, silver and diamonds.
More Uncertainty Each Day
Think about it: we’re constantly hearing about new conflicts and instances of political instability in the news – North Korea might launch a nuclear weapon, there is an ongoing war in Syria, and Iran is also on the brink of political instability. This is the type of uncertainty that can drive plenty of investors to gold and silver, which will only push the value up.
There’s a plethora of other reasons why investing in hard assets are becoming popular, but, alas, this is only a short article. To learn more, check out the radio show above, or do your own guided research on the topic. The bottom-line, though: invest in hard assets, and you’ll be “golden”.
