Image source @ Visual China
Text | Kaiboluocaijing, author | Jin Jiepan, Editor | Wei Jia
What is the most profitable thing to invest in?
The answer is gold? On March 7, the international gold price broke through the $2,000 mark, and as of press time, it touched a maximum of $2,063/oz, a rhythm that was about to hit an all-time high of $2,073.
When to enter the market determines how much money you make. A gold digger who entered the market in 2016 told Open Pineapple Finance that he had cashed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent days.
The price of domestic physical gold has also followed the international gold price all the way up. In the recent week, the price of a single gram of gold has risen from 501 yuan to 527 yuan. If you buy 100,000 yuan of gold, then, in 7 days, you will earn more than 5,000 yuan. People who buy gold before the Spring Festival earn more.
The teller of a gold store in Beijing told Kai Pineapple Finance that the mentality of most customers is to buy up and not buy down, the price of gold has been rising for many years, and the gold products in the store are selling better and better.
Many people chanted that the golden age has come.
The most fierce shouts are some young people with dreams of getting rich. After riding the "roller coaster" in the fund market for a year, they noticed the current "safe haven" of gold at a glance. Most people wonder, is this the next chance to get rich?
If you think that young people just follow their aunts to the store to grab gold jewelry, you are very wrong. Kai Pineapple Finance chatted with several young people with gold under their names, trying to uncover the corner of the "golden dream" of young people.
Those who have more money and less money do not want to miss the opportunity. College students who have not yet walked out of school have begun to save gold beans, and newcomers to the workplace who do not have much savings are set to invest in gold funds and buy investment-type physical gold, but high-level players have long been betting on "paper gold" and have cashed out at a high level.
The investment cannons are frank, the random flowers are gradually charming, and there is a threshold for understanding gold. The most common way to buy "gold" is jewelry gold, but to invest in gold, you still have to buy gold funds, gold stocks, physical gold bars, paper gold, and if not, you can also buy the "golden beans" that have become popular in the past two years. More complex gold investments, as well as gold futures and gold T+D, are risky and suitable for high-end investors.
Young people who are eager to earn the "first bucket of gold", if they have not yet had time to learn gold knowledge, may have to be taught another lesson in the golden fog.
Jewelry gold, physical gold, paper gold, don't pick the eyes
There are many temptations in the "golden dream", gold can be speculated, hoarded, and available, but in the end how to buy, there are many "doorways".
Xiao Yan's first impression of gold was jewelry gold. He felt that this was related to his education from an early age, and when he was encouraged to study well, he was always told by the teacher that "there is a golden house in the book". At that time, Xiao Yan was obsessed with wearing gold and silver, and even had faith in gold.
The "Golden Dream" was done early, but at first, Xiao Yan did not think of relying on this financial management. Just graduated from college in 2015, he still has a lot of money, every New Year's Holiday, he will go to Chow Tai Sang, Chow Tai Fook, Zhou Shengsheng, these "Zhou Zi Generation" gold jewelry stores "panning", to buy gold necklaces and gold rings for his parents and objects.
"Looking at the current gold price, I especially regret that in 2017 I only bought a gold chain of 10,000 for my father, and if I go back to 2017, I will buy one for myself." Xiao Yan smiled and said.
In fact, gold jewelry, in the eyes of Xiao Yan's family, is more of a psychological added value, and it is not necessarily expected to be able to "generate gold".
Ma Peng's "golden dream" was "urged" by his parents. His family has a "custom", every year when the child celebrates his birthday, the grandparents buy a piece of investment-type physical gold for the juniors, which is equivalent to financial management, and when the children grow up, as a dowry or the cost of schooling. Ma Peng's child is 3 years old this year and received 3 50g investment gold bars.
Recently, the child was about to celebrate his birthday, and his parents heard that the price of gold had risen, urging him to hurry to the local gold store to buy gold. "Buy double this year".
The task given to him by his parents was clear, buying only investment gold bars. On March 7, he arrived at the store, looked at the conspicuous position in the store where the basic gold price of the day was placed, 512 yuan per gram, and listened to the teller introduce no less than ten kinds of gold bars, or "spent the eyes".
At the counter, in addition to investment/wealth gold bars, there are also zodiac baby investment gold bars, Golden Tiger New Year/ Tiger Year Auspicious/ Year of the Ox Heirloom Gold Bars, Lucky Word Gold Bars, Every Year With Surplus Gold Bars, Smooth Sailing Gold Bars... "When the baby is older, you can also buy gold bars with gold titles, koi leaping dragon gate gold bars, grand plan gold bars, horses to success gold bars, marriage / dragon and phoenix gold bars..."
"These gold bars are full of gold, good color, it is recommended to choose a blessing printed, figure an auspicious." The teller told him at the same time that he should not buy "one-price gold", but buy one that is charged according to the weight of the gram, "we have from 7g to 50g.".
In fact, Xiao Yan and Ma Peng can only be regarded as a more traditional type of golden concept. Young people who really use gold to manage their finances are playing the idea of gold funds and paper gold.
Because gold jewelry needs to pay processing fees, and gold bars will produce wear and tear in their daily storage, and they also need to be equipped with multiple insurance measures, which are unnecessary costs. Many investors said that investing in gold will not choose to buy jewelry gold, if in order to "peace of mind", you can choose investment-type physical gold, but the most convenient is "paper gold".
Xiao Yan's habit of buying gold jewelry was not long before he was poured cold water. Influenced by colleagues, in the second half of last year, he got into the car of the Gold Fund, and put the eggs in the same basket, only bought one, and has been losing money in the meantime. This homework does not matter, he found that investing in gold and real gold is not a concept, the real gold price increase, does not affect the loss of investment.
"I was in a good mood and I was convinced that I would come back up." Xiao Yan's idea sounded a little naïve, but it came true. He has been earning since February this year and currently yields 4.5%.
Unlike the "little white" who came into contact with gold not long ago, many "old cannon" investors bought "paper gold".
Paper gold, as the name suggests, refers to book gold trading, is a way of gold investment, the use of international gold price fluctuations, investment to earn the difference in income, but can only be bought and sold transactions, can not be used as gold physical withdrawal or storage, no value preservation function, not suitable for long-term holding.
The vast majority of people trade paper gold through bank apps or Alipay. Their abacus is simple, either speculative or risk averse.
Some people speculate, some people take risks
"The biggest hope is to rise and rise..." Yang Wen, who bought "paper gold", said to Kai Pineapple Finance that all his hopes are now pinned on gold, because he was "hurt" too deeply by the fund.
Not long after he graduated, he heard people around him talking about which fund earned how much, "very exciting, it is difficult not to be moved", listened more, and followed the car.
However, his heavy positions of new energy, military and semiconductor funds all fell by 15%, "and they have not been rescued until now." In line with the principle of risk diversification, he took out 10% of the funds and invested in paper gold.
"At that time, I listened to many people in the circle discuss that gold is suitable for bottoming, so I bought some, and now it proves that I accurately copied the bottom, and entered at a low of 350 yuan in August last year." Yang Wen said.
Liang Si, who invested in the primary market, also entered the market at a low of 350 yuan, but earlier, before the epidemic and before the Spring Festival in 2020.
"At that time, the stock market was not very good, especially the risk of a single stock was relatively large, and the fund was more suitable for long-term operations, so I hoped to buy some gold, short-term operations, and do some hedging." Liang Si, who has no attachment to inheritance and is not obsessed with gold objects, resolutely inserted tens of thousands of pieces of paper gold into Alipay. At that time, gold was also very "competitive", and the price quickly broke through 410 yuan.
The results proved that Liang Si's hedging operation was correct. In the past six months, the best performance of the investment products in her hands is gold, and other stocks and funds are not ideal.
"It's unrealistic to expect to make a lot of money buying gold unless the fiat system collapses and returns to the gold standard." Zhang Cheng, who awakened early in his financial awareness, began to contact stocks and funds in 2014, and since 2016, he has invested in gold through bank APP, and the price at that time was about 260 yuan.
But Zhang Cheng said he didn't earn much. Because gold has not been his main wealth management product, it is only part of asset allocation, which is used to protect the capital and resist risks. "Looking back at history, the volatility of gold is very poor, and the ratio to stocks and futures can be ignored, from the price I bought at that time to now, it has only doubled in 6 years."
Zhang Cheng pinned his hopes of making money on encrypted digital currencies, most of them were used to buy bitcoin, and in line with the principle of not putting eggs in the same basket, stocks, funds, gold, bitcoins, all held.
"Recently, because of the turmoil in the world, generally risky assets are falling, but gold is preserving its value." Like Zhang Cheng, in fact, gold is used to hedge risk in the eyes of most investors, whether it is physical gold, paper gold, whether it is gold futures or gold ETFs, can play this role.
Novice xiaobai enters, and advanced players cash out
Li Rui, a college student who has not yet left the school, also wants to let go and buy gold, but unfortunately the purse is not powerful. Recently, he discovered a gold wealth management product that matched his financial resources, Jindou. 1 gram at a time, buy one by one, no pressure.
At first, Li Rui doubted that Jindou was unreliable, but later, this is already a more popular way of saving money among young people since 2020.
Some friends also advised him to be cautious, because the price of more than 500 yuan is not cheap. But Li Rui usually does not pay attention to the gold price, thinking that saving gold beans can motivate himself to save money in disguise, but one after another, the more he buys, the more addictive he becomes. Now I have also developed the habit of taking out 20 golden beans to play when I am idle.
In this "gold rush" that began at the beginning of the year, most young people "chased up", but high-level players have begun to leave. So-called, buy in the no-one place, sell when the crowd is boiling.
A large number of people began to set up real things of gold. A bank staff member revealed to Open Pineapple Finance that recently, the price of gold has risen to a high level, and the redemption and realization business has obviously become more.
Not all gold shops have a buyback business, so there is a gold recycling business in the market. Chen Hao, who runs a small recycled gold shop, said that since February, business has been booming, and people have consulted the recycling price every day.
After practicing paper gold trading for two years, Liang Si slowly touched the doorway: he could enter the market before the New Year, because after the year, it would basically rise a wave; if the price was within 360 yuan, he could generally make money. She has always regarded gold as a short-term wealth management product, fixed on buying years ago, selling years later, and this year is the same, recently the gold price soared to a high level, she sold most of it, the yield is more than 17%.
Zhou Shan, who began to enter gold in 2016, was more calm, and recently directly liquidated all of his positions at one time, one did not stay, and realized hundreds of thousands.
These are the ones he has bought one after another in six years, some on the bank APP, and some on Alipay. It was also the first time in six years that he had completely liquidated his position. He said that his investment philosophy is to always look for value depressions, buy all positions when they are undervalued, and sell immediately when they are overvalued.
"The current world situation has raised people's worries about the future to a very high critical value, and the value of gold hard currency is reflected, and more people have bought recently, resulting in continuous price surges." Zhou Shan said that since he focused on gold in 2015, gold prices have been pushed up sharply three times, twice because of the geopolitical situation and once because of the epidemic in 2020.
However, he judged that the geopolitical situation and the occasional factor of the epidemic will affect the price of gold, but it will not have a long-term cyclical impact on the price of gold, "because gold itself does not produce value, does not generate cash flow, and does not expect it to bring high returns."
Zhou Shan told Kai Pineapple Finance that the threshold of gold financial management is not low, it is not easy to understand, its essence is value preservation and speculation, more suitable for investors who are relatively stable and understand certain financial knowledge. Xiaobai, who does not understand finance at all, is recommended not to touch.
"Simply put, if you have 100,000 yuan and are worried about losing this 100,000, then go buy gold, if you want to give it a fight, let 100,000 become 200,000, then go buy stocks or cryptocurrencies, of course, the risk is that the 100,000 may all be lost." Zhou Shan said.
According to his observation, there has recently been a wave of investors who have been educated in the stock and fund markets and have begun to follow up on gold. "There is always no shortage of speculators in the market who are 'what falls and cuts, what goes up and what buys.'"
"Don't go where there are many people", Zhou Shan highly admires the ideas of Buffett and Charlie Munger. Recently, he took the money he cashed out of gold and re-positioned several funds and stocks.
"After buying (the gold fund), I stared at the trend every day and was scared." Xiao Yan, who was somewhat lost in the gold fund, felt that with his own financial strength, it was really not suitable for financial management. Next, he plans to quit quickly, wait for money, invest in gold bars as soon as possible, and pass on the family.
*At the request of the interviewees, Xiao Yan, Ma Peng, Yang Wen, Li Rui, Chen Hao, Zhou Shan, Liang Si, and Zhang became pseudonyms.
*The information in this article does not constitute investment advice.