By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA | Mon Oct 4, 2010 1:13pm EDT
(Reuters) - The world's wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar -- and sometimes by the ton -- and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.
Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
"They don't only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold," said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank's services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.
UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.
"We had a clear example of a couple buying over a ton of gold ... and carrying it to another place," Stadler said. At today's prices, that shipment would be worth about $42 million.
...
"I see gold as an insurance," Van Anantha-Nageswaran said. "I recommend 10 percent as minimum in portfolios and anything more than that to be used for trading purposes, to respond to short-term over-bought or over-sold signals."
ULTIMATE BUBBLE?
Billionaire financier George Soros, echoing comments from investment guru Warren Buffett, last month described gold as the "ultimate bubble" because it is costly to dig up and has no real value except its market price.
...
UBS's Stadler said the precious metal has become a staple of investors' portfolios, despite questions about whether it makes for a smart long-term investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment