Celebrity Life

The CEO of Apollo Investments reflects on the start-ups he's invested in and why failure is an important metric.

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The CEO of Apollo Investments reflects on the start-ups he's invested in and why failure is an important metric.

For more stories like this, visit www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg.

We’ve all dreamt of how we would spend our millions if a mega lottery win came our way, haven’t we? The odds of winning the jackpot may seem somewhat out of reach, but then someone has to win it, and we are permitted to dream about those holidays of a lifetime, the flashy cars and […]

Will luxury timepieces ever be a viable investment category and why are prices for some models exploding? To answer these questions and discuss investing in watches, we turn to the experts: Eric Ku, veteran watch dealer and the founder of new auction company Loupe This, Austen Chu, founder of pre-owned watch specialist company Wristcheck, Thomas Perazzi, head of watches at Phillips Asia; Sam Hines, worldwide head of Sotheby’s Watches, and Alexandre Bigler, vice president and head of watches at Christie’s Asia.

How do you explain the explosion of prices of watches at auction and on the secondary market?

Eric Ku: Many factors are contributing to the explosion of prices on the secondary market and its rise to prominence. Firstly, many coveted watches simply aren’t available on the primary market – steel sports-model Rolexes have always been hard to get, but now even a gold Day-Date or plain steel Datejusts are hard to find. Rather than waiting for “the call” from a primary dealer, many of people have elected to go to the secondary market and pay a premium price for something and not have to wait. Secondly, with Covid and the associated lockdowns of the past 15 months, people have become a lot more comfortable buying from home, even when it involves something expensive like a watch. While authorised dealers have to deal with a lot of red tape as to how they can sell things, secondary-market dealers have no such problems. Thirdly, with a lot of time on everyone’s hands during the lockdown, many people at home have been surfing the internet looking for things to buy, and what better than a new watch?

Austen Chu: I can probably talk about this for hours on end, but let me try to sum it up in a few sentences. I think the recent explosion in market prices for watches is an amalgamation of many factors, which include the introduction of social media (people tend to forget that social media is only about a decade old), the influence of watches in pop culture (50 years ago, singers weren’t bragging about the watches they were wearing in their songs), and access to information/tools that previously weren’t available to previous generations. None of this existed decades ago, and in my opinion, it’s just the beginning.

Thomas Perazzi: There’s a strong growth in collectors of vintage timepieces, who’ve acquired modern pieces in the past and have decided to experiment with vintage. The way we communicate is very different from 10 to 15 years ago. The main way to follow an auction 20 years ago was to be physically in the saleroom, but now through social media and the internet, vintage timepieces are being represented and talked about on a daily basis, with experts from the industry and collectors passing their passion and knowledge to the next generation. There are many new players joining the watch-collecting market every year and this will continue to grow, especially with the digital transformation.

Alexandre Bigler: I’d say that the exceptional results and prices achieved at our auction reflect supply and demand in the current market. Unique pieces with impeccable provenance (for example, the Patek Philippe Alan Banbery 3448J and FP Journe Chronometre Souverain, made specially for Dr George Daniels) and vintage timepieces, particularly from Patek Philippe and Rolex, attracted deep bidding, as their supply was extremely low. Another reason we witnessed is an influx of new and emerging collectors, who learn fast and are very responsive to market trends. Their growing appetite, in particular for fast-rising brands at auction like Audemars Piauet, Breguet and A Lange & Söhne, also pushed the high prices achieved at our auction this spring.

Has Covid had an impact on the way people are spending and collecting, or do you credit other factors as well?

EK: It absolutely has. I’ve explained some of the ways above. Other factors play a part too, with brands generally becoming more nimble and focusing on what customers want, and focusing on new ways to engage with collectors. With limited opportunities for in-person gatherings, brands had to pivot their outreach strategies to get customers interested in their offerings.

TP: The pandemic has given people more time to ponder and restructure their collections, resulting in the availability of pieces that rarely hit the market. The pandemic has also given watch lovers more time to research and go deep into what they collect and build deeper knowledge in timepieces. The secondary watch market is stronger than ever – our phenomenal results at Phillips since 2020 prove that the pandemic hasn’t cooled consumer demand for mint-condition horological rarities that came to auctions.

Sam Hines: I also think a lot of our clients prefer to have tangible assets instead of money right now, given the economic outlook. At the same time, some people wish to sell their assets in exchange for cash. In general, prices all over are strong but it’s true for watches in particular. I think we reached a lot of new clients with our smaller online sales and made our sales more accessible and, to be honest, bidding in auctions can be addictive.

AB: I think collectors have become comfortable and receptive to buying online, as the pandemic drives almost every brand – including, of course, Christie’s – to expand and enhance digital footprints over the past year, which further helps educate trade and individual clients to buy in retail stores and at auction. The rise and rapid expansion of social media e. has also promoted tech-savvy collectors’ purchases online.

AC: Yes, tremendously. For watch collectors and people with a higher disposable income, this also meant that their expenses fell dramatically (no more family summer holidays etc). This, coupled with endless hours browsing the internet, leads people to spend more on watches that they would’ve in the past and fuelled the frenzy we’re seeing now. Watch collecting is addictive – once you start, it’s quite hard to stop!

Is it a bubble that you expect will burst and will prices readjust themselves in the next few years? Or is what we’re seeing going to be the new standard?

EK: By nature I’m a glass-half-empty guy, and have been waiting for the prices to tumble, but it seems as if I may be wrong on this one. The market itself is getting bigger and bigger, at an almost exponential pace. With so much (new) interest being placed on watches – both new and pre-owned – I don’t see a collapse coming soon. Does that mean that the Nautilus won’t come down in price? No – there are some outrageously frothy segments of the market – but I think the general macro trends are very strong and will continue to be so.

TP: Of course not. I’ve been seeing the growth of interest in watch collecting for more than a decade. There are many new players joining the watch-collecting market every year and I think this will continue to grow – especially with the digital transformation, the watch market has become even larger. For example, our recent Hong Kong Watches sale had a record number of online participants, the highest ever in Phillips Asia’s company history. Phillips Watches also ended its first half of 2021 selling every single watch offered across our sales globally. Watches that aren’t having much commercial success today may be sought-after by collectors in the future. For example, the Patek Philippe Ref 2523, which sold for more than 7 million Swiss francs at our Geneva Watch Auction in May – it would seem that the elaborate and refined aesthetics that make the timepiece so iconic and attractive nowadays, were too ahead of their time at the time of its release. The Ref 2523 wasn’t especially welcomed by Patek Philippe clients and consequently production was very limited. A slightly modified version, the Ref 2523/1, was also launched but with a largely similar response.

SH: Prices should level off and will stop increasing at such rates. The demand easily outweighs the supply, so for now I believe this is the new norm.

AB: First of all, the annual production by legendary brands and even independent watchmakers was always very limited even before the pandemic. The demand for their timepieces will naturally be stable and strong. Secondly, the pandemic might have forced some brands temporarily to shut down their factories, but collectors respond very fast and will shift their focus to vintage designs, before the modern complications come to the market again. The market responds and evolves naturally. Thirdly, watches is a very interesting and unique category – in general, watch collectors invest a lot of of time and effort in researching the market before making a purchase. They seldom buy hot-headed or simply to resell the next day. And lastly, exceptional, rare, unique, limited-edition timepieces always stand the test of time; they’re rarely a fad in the market.

AC: People tend to forget that the watch industry as a whole is so much more than the brands that are in demand – such as AP, Patek, Rolex, RM, FP Journe – when it comes to diversity and product offerings. There are so many fantastic brands out there that give you a ton of value for the money. However, with the current market trends, it seems that these brands will continue to be strong, and that’s simply because of supply and demand. There’s this huge influx of next-gen collectors who can’t get anything at retail. The luxury watch industry was historically meant to be “exclusive”, in the sense that manufactures can’t produce high quantities due to the skilled labour required to make these beautiful watches. The paradigm shift occurred when information stopped becoming exclusive, because of the internet, social media etc, but the watch manufactures themselves still remain exclusive in terms of production. As long as people want to buy luxury watches that are hard to acquire, I believe this trend will continue. However, this also offers many opportunities for other brands, and I believe the next wave will be in other independent brands.

When tracking the trends for certain pieces, what are you seeing?

SH: The stainless-steel sports watches made by Patek Philippe and Rolex. No one can get them, everyone wants them and multiple models are trading at three, four or even five times the retail prices. A Patek Philippe Ref 1436 was sold at more than HK$5.25 million in our 2020 Hong Kong October sale. Eight years ago, that watch sold for less than half that price. There’s also a huge demand for watches manufactured by independent brands in very limited numbers. Of all brands, the one that’s increased at ground-breaking rates is FP Journe – some models have increased by 400 percent in one year. It’s the most fashionable brand now and market prices typically increase when they’re in vogue and talked about the most. An FP Journe Chronomètre à Résonance, circa 2002 with power-reserve indication and brass movement, realised 239,400 Swiss francs (US$261,386) in Geneva in November, against an estimated US$55,000-$110,000.

TP: I’d say that there’s is a huge growth of interest in independent watchmakers, such as FP Journe, De Bethune, Roger Smith and Philippe Dufour. And the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak is also very popular among Asian buyers.

Has the market become more of an investment platform than a passion or hobby?

EK: I tell all my customers that there are plenty of better things to invest your money in, and that watches should primarily be an investment in your passion and pleasure. That being said, it’s difficult to ignore the dollars and cents of it all when prices are so high and some guys are seeing their steel Daytonas, which they bought at retail for US$12,000, go for nearly triple that on the secondary market. What ultimately will be detrimental to the market is when a majority of buyers and collectors are doing so for financial profit and not for pleasure and passion.

SH: As the prices have increased so much in the last few years, for sure collectors look at their purchases as investments too. However, our advice to collectors is always to buy the very best watch they’re genuinely passionate about and that their budget can afford. Buying purely from the investment perspective doesn’t guarantee a good re-sale price.

AB: I’d say it’s a mixture of both, but Christie’s always encourages clients to buy for passion as watches aren’t just assets that hold monetary value, but are also are wearable art that carry craftsmanship, science, humanity and personal stories, which can be passed along the generations.

AC: We’re seeing a mixture of people coming into the watch space, and a lot of young people do view certain luxury watches as an alternative way to store their wealth, so for a certain portion of the new generation it’s become somewhat of an investment, but alongside their hobby of watch collecting. On the other hand, we’re seeing more and more young watch collectors who buy purely for passion and don’t care about the market. I think it’s a fairly large mixture, and I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. A lot of young collectors are also getting into the space of watches for social status. Watches have never been this culturally cool or as culturally relevant, ever. There’s nothing wrong with buying a watch you love that also happens to go up in price over time, but you should be passionate first. I don’t think it’s smart for someone to come into the watch space with a purely opportunistic mindset.

Will steel sports watches have this hold on the market forever, or are there other pieces that you yourself, or other clients, are starting to shift their focus to?

EK: As a lover of all watches, I encourage my customers to collect what they like, even if it isn’t steel sports watches. I think when looked at even under a magnifying glass, all segments of the market have increased in value and price over the last several years. I definitely don’t advocate that people go and pay market price for a 5711 Nautilus and then expect to sell it at a profit. They should be buying it at that price because they just can’t live without it.

Do you see any pieces on that are on the rise? Are there specific pieces you’re curating that are in high demand?

AC: Yes, for sure. For Wristcheck, the majority of our clients are young (under 35), and the trends are very predictable. They mainly only want independent brands such as hot APs and hot Pateks – and, surprisingly, smaller independent brands such as Richard Mille, MB&F, H Moser and De Bethune. I find it really interesting that not many of them are asking for brands that we expected, such as Rolex (of course we sell Rolex, but not as many as we anticipated). We tend to curate discontinued models that hold historical significance but tend to be overlooked by the market, though it’s clear which brands are doing well.

(Hero Image: the Patek Philippe Ref. 2523 sold at the Phillips Geneva Watch Auction: Xiii in May for 7 million Swiss Francs)

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Thinking of investing in some real estate this year? Expanding your portfolio with some new luxury properties can be a great way to expand your portfolio – but before you dive in head first, it pays to learn the ropes, because not everyone who has the capital is equipped to see success without the right […]

There’s no doubt Alex Lam inherited his musical talent from his parents, his father being Cantopop legend George Lam Chi-Cheung, and his mother, Sally Yeh. Still, the singer-songwriter and actor hasn’t let privilege get to his head — he’s not afraid to explore other paths, from a stint in Los Angeles to discover yoga and becoming a yoga teacher, to dipping his toes in fashion.

Lam met Hiro Yoshikawa, founder and designer of Washi Jeans, a Japanese denim brand, a couple years back and was intrigued by the designer’s backstory. Now based in Hong Kong, Yoshikawa is the 18^th generation of a revered sake maker in Okayama, Japan, and the first to leave the family business to pursue his own passion in denim-making. By chance, Yoshikawa had found an old document that charted out his family’s history, written on washi paper. Inspired by this, he developed and patented the Washi No. 6 paper yarn, which he utilizes in his first solo collection launching this month.

Lam, who has always had an eye for detail, quickly became an ambassador and muse for Yoshikawa, and took it upon himself to bring the recognition Yoshikawa deserves by helping him stage his upcoming solo debut.

We sit down with Alex Lam and Hiro Yoshikawa at Washi Jean's studio to talk about style and the upcoming debut of Yoshikawa's solo collection Life on Earth.

Can you describe your style? What are your wardrobe essentials?

AL: My style has always been inspired by musicians. I grew up watching some of my favourite bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and today, I'm inspired by singers like Drake. For me, my summer essentials include a sleeveless vest, a good multi-functional blazer and a pair of high-quality designer jeans.

Have you always been passionate about fashion and did you want to work in fashion?

AL: I have always cared about how I look and my outfits since I was a kid. I remember there was one time when the collar of my t-shirt wasn't right and I wouldn’t wear it out until my parents fixed it for me. Having friends who are in the fashion industry allows me to execute and experiment my ideas during workshops, like the ‘marshmallow’ colourway of the t-shirt I’m wearing right now. 

How did the both of you meet?

AL: I met Hiro-san thought some of our mutual friends.

HY: have been making jeans for other brands for the past 30 years and it has always been my dream to have my own denim brand. I have always hung out with people from the fashion industry, and meeting Alex from the music and acting world has made my life more fun and exciting.

Can you tell us a bit about your project with Hiro-san?

AL: I was hanging out with a group of producers and we often talk about fashion shows, designer brands’ videos, installation art and music. Once we found out Hiro-san wanted to launch his own denim brand this year, we decided to catch this opportunity and put our ideas together. We are organising a VIP launch event with a fashion show on June 11, 2021.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome with this project?

AL: I think the rules of the game changed after Covid started last year. We looked at online fashion shows last year, without the tradition styles, and we knew our team needed to do it in a cleverer way. The restriction for event gathering is 30 persons at the moment, so we were not able to invite too many friends and make the event as big as before. Plus the campaign and fashion show video shoot all in one day, that’s the biggest challenge in this project.

HY:  We have been staying in our studio almost every day is the past few months, meeting different parties like our PR team, models, videographers and producers.

What else are you up to this year that you can share with us?

AL: I have released a new song and I just finished a music video for another song. I have also been working on my YouTube channel and created a few series, but it’s been slightly slowed down because I was focusing in this project.

Has the pandemic affected the way you work or changed your priorities?

AL: Before Covid, I was busy working with clients, who often prepared everything. With changes and restrictions during this period, I am able to organise and create more content by myself.

What are you currently inspired by?

AL: There are many indie musicians and young kids out there who are doing their music in their unique styles. I admire them a lot as they can release songs as long as they think it sounds good. I used think good music requires the best studio and recording equipment, but turned out a lot of indie musicians are producing high quality songs just by working at home.

You have a YouTube channel, you're into fashion, music as well as classic cars. How did you get into each of those passions and how do you balance it all?

AL: Project by project. I’m now focusing more on quantity over quality and I'll keep learning from the progress and mistakes.

Do you have a motto you live by?

Stay healthy. As I was a yoga teacher, I still practice yoga for two to three hours each day. It’s a good way to reflect on myself and find peace.

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The difference between bottles, casks, independents and funds.

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The difference between bottles, casks, independents and funds.

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The pandemic has triggered massive changes in investor-adviser relationships that we’re only just beginning to understand.

How high-net-worth individuals and family offices work with their financial advisers to protect and grow their money after Covid-19 is today’s most pressing issue. The pandemic will be remembered as a near cataclysmic, black-swan event that continues to shake global economies, markets and industries in ways that are still being worked out. The effects of human isolation have both worsened and changed how people relate to each other and make investment decisions.

Private wealth managers say that extended periods of restricted personal interaction and communication among family members can exacerbate existing tensions about estate succession and wealth management. Mega-rich family dynasties can quickly descend into a showcase for dysfunction, highlighting the witless cruelty of the entitled and the pathetic emotional inadequacy of the endlessly spoiled. The scheming and backstabbing between monstrous and self-entitled family members can become exposed for all to see, as if it was all in a television soap opera. As Tolstoy said in his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Governance in a sprawling family office risks being largely based on family relationships rather than institutional policies. A private banker once told me that he asks his wealthy clients, “What is your relationship with your money?” Because how you relate to your money says a lot about your personality, and ultimately decides how succession and management conflicts will be resolved.

[caption id="attachment_210883" align="alignnone" width="1024"] (Image: Liv Bruce/ Unsplash)[/caption]

For families, the weakness is that most decisions are undergirded by emotion – and that’s unpredictable and undemocratic as a basis for a family’s long-term investment policy. The gut rules as its own tyrant. It doesn’t have to account for itself any more than divine inspiration can be questioned by believers. It’s not open to contradiction because it’s entirely personal. All decisions must flow from the instincts of the singular leader. So everyone must accommodate themselves to unpredictability. And when you’re rich, whatever you say is considered wisdom. Engaging in realistic and critical thinking is a lot more complex and challenging than resorting to clichés.

Governance risks lurk in the market for family-owned, public companies. Activist funds and proxy advisory firms hunt for opportunities to exploit the impaired structures and weakened valuations of family- owned businesses trying to appoint unqualified second- or third- generation descendants as top managers. Balancing the interests of professional managers and the desires of the next generation is an ongoing family risk. Young people love risk because they can’t imagine the consequences, while the older generation love building golden tombs and sealing the rest of the family in with them.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of sustainability and the fragility of our entire ecosystem and relationships. Never lose sight of the primacy of preserving capital, downside protection and the importance of sustaining a collective and disciplined succession process. Building and maintaining a formal family-governance and individual portfolio-management policy requires effort, especially in a time when normal communication methods are impaired.

Many clients have been forced by the pandemic to remain at home. Travel, in-person meetings and socialising have largely ceased. While videoconferencing capabilities have existed for a long time, they were never the first choice for communication. Now with the pandemic in full swing, it has become a major lifeline, offering an opportunity to improve the dialogue and relationship between clients and their financial advisers.

Advisers have observed how commonplace mobile video-conferencing technology allows them to devote more time to clients because their daily work routine has become disintermediated. At the same time, clients want to be better informed and comforted about their investments and the markets in such an uncertain period.

[caption id="attachment_210884" align="alignnone" width="1024"] (Image: Stephen Dawson/ Unsplash)[/caption]

The pandemic ironically represents a unique opportunity for high-net-worth individuals and wealth managers to better understand each others’ goals and services.

Carefully discerning how you and your family’s life and investment objectives change over time and market conditions has never been more important. You need to maintain discipline to cultivate and maintain long term goals. Ignore short-term, emotional, reactive trades trying to catch opportunities in a volatile market. However, investors at all times need to fully understand their personal tolerance for risk and expectations of returns.

Despite resistance to change, there is little doubt the post-Covid world will offer a significantly different operating and living environment. Human communications and how technology is used to establish and maintain relationships are undergoing profound changes that have not yet been determined. That more people are more comfortable with working from home will alter the nature of the workplace.

Nonetheless, the post-Covid financial world will still demand some sort of one-on-one, relationship-driven nature in wealth advisory. Consuming information and planning portfolios entirely online has always been possible, but now mobile applications have made it more accessible and conventional. However, clients also need to experience a level of investment intimacy, sympathy and personal service, too.

The digitalisation of financial services has been reshaping the traditional banking landscape for years. But the pandemic has forced all participants to further redefine how humans interact with technology. Innovations may reduce the need for regular face-to-face engagements and force a redefinition of what constitutes a financial relationship and how people make investment decisions.

This story first appeared on Prestige Singapore

(Main and featured image: Shutterstock)

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Donald Han, CEO of Sabana Reit, shares his insights on the investment potential of industrial real estate.

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Donald Han, CEO of Sabana Reit, shares his insights on the investment potential of industrial real estate.

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There’s a good reason the lexicon refers to apex happenings, events or organisations as setting the “gold standard”. Gold holds its own for multiplicitous reasons: as a luxury good, an investment, a reserve asset and, increasingly, as an indispensable technological component. It’s highly liquid, no one’s liability, carries no credit risk, is scarce and historically it preserves its value over time. The Chinese in bygone dynasties espoused the efficacious nature of gold and even considered it offered "immortality".

When it comes to contemporary finance and dynamising your portfolio, gold may be a less-frequented commodity, but it’s an asset that repays investor loyalty like few others.

There’s a quartet of ways in which gold works for you as an investor: it generates long-term returns; acts as a diversifier and mitigates losses in times of market stress, provides liquidity with no credit risk and can also improve overall portfolio performance.

The World Gold Council estimates that adding between 2 and 10 percent in gold to a hypothetical US pension fund average portfolio over the past decade would have resulted in higher risk-adjusted returns.

Economic expansion is good news for gold, as periods of growth are supportive of jewellery, technology and long-term savings. Conversely, risk and uncertainty also works in gold’s favour, as market downturns often boost investment demand for gold as safe haven.

Last year, gold had its best performance since 2010, rising by 18.4 percent in US-dollar terms. It also outperformed major global bond and emerging-market stock benchmarks over the same period. In addition, gold reached record highs in most major currencies except the US dollar and the Swiss franc. Investor appetite for gold was apparent throughout the year, as seen by strong ETF flows and robust central-bank demand.

But what about the start of the new decade and beyond? Despite the global pandemic and COVID-19, gold was – until recently – one of the few assets with positive returns this year. It was up 10 percent on the year as of March 9, more than any other major asset class.

But setbacks in its performance aren’t without precedent. Gold experienced pullbacks at the onset of the global financial crisis, too, falling between 15 and 25 percent in US-dollar terms a couple of times during 2008. But by the end of that year, gold was one of the few assets – alongside US treasuries – to post positive returns.

Investors face an expanding list of challenges around asset-management and portfolio construction. Among them are low interest rates, which may push investors to seek riskier assets at elevated valuation levels and, for US pension funds in particular, may increase the value of liabilities, possibly reducing their funding ratio. Other concerns will be continued financial- market uncertainty, ranging from geopolitical tensions to expectations of diverging global economic growth and an increase in asset volatility.

Faced with the above, gold is not only a useful long-term strategic component for portfolios, but also one that’s increasingly relevant in the current environment.

David Tait, chief executive officer at the World Gold Council, commented: “The retail gold market is healthy, with gold being considered a mainstream choice. But what really excites me is the untapped part of the market: those people who’ve never bought gold but are warm to the idea of doing so in the future.

“Two issues need to be addressed to engage with these potential gold buyers: trust and awareness. This market can flourish if we can build trust across the broad spectrum of gold products being sold, and raise awareness around the positive role gold can play in protecting people’s wealth.”

Buying and Investing in Gold

Once you take the decision to buy or invest in the precious metal, which declension best suits your needs?

Physical Gold Bars

Small bars and coins have accounted for two-thirds of annual investment gold demand and around one quarter of global gold demand over the past decade. Demand for diamond bars and coins has quadrupled since the early 2000s, and the trend covers both the East and the West. New markets, such as China, have been established and old markets, including Europe, have re-emerged.

Gold-backed EFTs

Physically backed gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) and similar funds account for approximately one-third of investment gold demand. These funds were introduced in 2003, and, as of March 2016, they collectively held 2,300 tonnes of physical gold on behalf of investors around the world.

Allocated Gold Accounts

Bullion banks offer their institutional or high-net-worth customers allocated gold accounts consisting of gold deposits and resembling currency acounts. The holder of an allocated account is the legal owner of a specific quantity of gold. Bullion banks also offer unallocated accounts. In an unallocated account, a customer does not own specific bars or coins, but has a general entitlement to a set amount of gold. The investor is not the legal owner of any physical gold.

Internet Investment Gold

Or go digital with your gold investment. An increasingly common way of accessing the gold market is Internet Investment Gold (IIG). It allows investors to buy physical gold online, have it stored in professional vaults and take possession of it should the need arise. As such, IIG offers investors a highly convenient way to benefit from outright ownership of physical gold.

Gold Derivatives: Futures, Forwards and Options

Investing in derivatives requires more knowledge of financial securities than other forms of investing and may not be suitable for all investors. Derivatives trade over-the-counter and on exchanges. Those traded in such a way settle in a central clearing house that matches buyers and sellers. Over-the-counter (OTC) varieties have more flexible structures but include additional counterparty risk.
Investors could buy into gold-mining companies. Such stocks may correlate with the gold price. However, the growth and return in stock depends on the expected future earnings of the company, not just on the value of gold. So whichever declension of investment you take, let your future be one long golden moment.

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