LONDON, 18 June 2009 - The Motley Fool's weekly MoneyTalk podcast today sees host David Kuo joined by Adrian Ash, head of research at gold-trading and ownership service, BullionVault.
"The bottom line," says Ash in the podcast, recorded last week, "is people tend to turn to gold when they get sick of miserable returns elsewhere. The price of getting the security, liquidity and diversification which gold can offer is the opportunity cost of not making anything anywhere else. But if you're not being paid anything anywhere else, that cost goes.
"If you're a higher-rate taxpayer in the UK, you've basically been at break-even at best so far this decade after tax and inflation. Interest rates have been so low, they've barely kept ahead of inflation, and now we're way below at the moment."
The Fool's 22-minute interview also covers the gold-mining sector, why Gordon Brown sold 60% of the UK's reserves in 1999, the disadvantages of keeping physical gold in your possession, how British investors can gain exposure to US-Dollar gold prices, plus a longer-term Sterling price forecast - wrung out of BullionVault's head of research together with a suggested weighting for portfolio allocation.
"Excellent, balanced...Great insight," say comments already made by Motley Fool users. You can download the podcast here, or read the transcript here.
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