General information

History

Gold is one of the oldest commodities traded on the exchange. Gold is quite a rare metal. Nonetheless, due to its physicochemical peculiarities people learned to use this metal long ago at the dawn of civilization. Egypt, Greece and Rome have reached a high level of technological development in terms of gold extraction from ores (up to 50 tons annually), as well as its purification and processing. Totally, during the ancient period people managed to mine about 15% of the gold mined in the entire history. As far as Russia is concerned gold mining also began in ancient times, but as long as the state did not have its own gold mining industry until the beginning of the 19th century – just 20 tons were mined in general in our country. The discovery of new technologies and rich deposits in 1814 let Russia became the leader in gold mining and we held the position from 1820 till 1848 – unless the gold rush in California started and then repeated in Australia and South Africa.

Physical features

• Gold is an incredibly ductile metal. One ounce of gold (less than 30 g) may be stretched into a thin wire 80 km long and 10 times thinner than a human hair. As a rule, natural gold thread is used in embroidery. The volume of gold from a matchbox is enough to gild the surface of a tennis court.
• Gold has a high density. A kilogram of gold can be rolled into a ball with a diameter of just over 4.5 centimeters.
• Gold tends to wear out due to its softness. If you wear a high-grade gold ring all your life, then in a few decades it will become twice as thin.
• It has high thermal and electrical conductivity.

Gold as an investment asset

The advantages of gold:

• Currencies tend to fall against gold;
• Including gold in investment portfolio is an effective way to diversify assets.

How can I invest in gold?

• Purchase of physical gold (golden coins, bullions) – 2/3 of all investment demand on gold;
• Purchase of ETF on Gold – 1/3 of investment demand on gold;
• Opening of unallocated bullion account;
• Buying derivatives on gold;
• Gold mining companies shares.

The Moscow Exchange has Deliverable Gold futures

Why is investing in gold the most beneficial?

1. High liquidity in futures;
2. It is not necessary to keep the contract until settlement – you may always sell it;
3. The buyer does not bear any costs associated with the storage of metal, as it happens in the case with physical gold;
4. The effect of leverage – buying a futures you do not have to pay the whole amount – only Initial Margin is needed.