How retail investors can ride the wave as gold scales new highs

Options include buying in fractions, or as digital tokens and ETFs backed by gold

- Chor Khieng Yuit

Gold has kept smashing price records in March and April as tensions in the Middle East unnerve investors who pile into safe haven assets for safety.

After hitting a record high of US$2,078.40 per ounce on Dec 28, 2023, the precious metal continued its strong run, marking a series of record highs in March and April, to hit US$2,401.50 an ounce on April 12.

The soaring value in recent months certainly makes gold an attractive part of any portfolio, but it can be quite costly for retail investors to get into.

One solution is what is known as fractional gold. This essentially splits up the cost of owning an ounce into smaller denominations, said Mr Jermyn Wong, head of intermediary South-East Asia at State Street Global Advisors.

If an ounce of gold is split into, say, one-tenth of an ounce, that is "10 per cent of the gold price", he added. An ounce of gold is equivalent to 31.1 grammes.

Retail investors can buy and sell fractions of physical gold bars from as little as one gramme to as much as an ounce at UOB.

As for institutional investors and traders, Mr David Tait, chief executive of the World Gold Council, said "asset managers of the world have been apathetic or not even interested in gold for all of their career".

Mr Tait wants to improve transparency around how the yellow metal is sourced to create a trusted product that asset managers will want to hold in their portfolios.