5 Good Reasons to Invest in Gold No Matter What the Stock Market Is Doing

Gold last traded at $1,855 an ounce. Silver at $25.61 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Tuesday on bargain-hunting and a weaker dollar. U.S. stocks traded flat as investors weighed rising interest rates and a potential economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Motley Fool--"When Wall Street is afraid, the world is dazzled by gold. That's what happened in August and September when COVID-19 panic pushed gold prices above $2,000 an ounce. Gold outperformed stocks during the volatile year of 2020, with gold prices rising 24.6%, compared with the 18.4% total returns delivered by the S&P 500 index.

Investing in gold based on your short-term prediction for stocks is sheer speculation. But investing a small amount in gold can be a valuable inflation hedge and portfolio diversifier. Here's when investing in gold makes sense, and why it has nothing to do with what's happening in the stock market.

1. It's been valued throughout human civilization - Gold has been highly sought after for thousands of years across cultures... You can count on gold holding its value, even if a global recession tanks jewelry demand in the short term....

2. The supply remains scarce - Contrary to popular belief, though, the Earth actually has ample amounts of gold. It's just that mining it is incredibly difficult, and most sources don't contain enough gold to make mining cost-effective....

3. It has lower volatility than most other commodities - The metal tends to be among the most stable commodity investments. Overall, gold demand is pretty constant. Jewelry, which accounts for 50% of its use...Central banks and investors, including individuals and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), drive about 40% of demand....

4. Its industrial usage is limited - Gold has various uses in fields like electronics, medicine, and dentistry. But only about 10% of worldwide gold demand is driven by industrial production. As a result, gold is relatively insulated from a manufacturing recession....

5. Interest rates are likely to stay low - When interest rates are low, gold often makes sense for those looking for a safe-haven asset because investors can't get much return from other safe-haven investments, like U.S. Treasuries....

The important thing to remember is that the best time to invest in gold will always be when you're not hearing about the price of gold in the news every day."