Investment Precious Metals: Gold, Silver, Platinum & Palladium – Current Price

Gold, silver, platinum & palladium and the current price – here you will find everything about precious metals as an investment. Especially gold is considered the investment form during and outside of crises. The price rises and rises and rises. Gold & Co. are measured per troy ounce, which is approximately 31.1 grams. On the one hand you can protect yourself as an investor with gold against future and current financial crises, on the other hand you can speculate on a rising gold price due to the permanent scarcity. Besides gold, there are many other interesting investment opportunities, for example silver. Silver is similar to gold in many aspects. It has also always been considered a stable store of value and a store of value.

Back to the Capital Investment editorial.

Precious metals: advantages, disadvantages and risk

The most important facts about gold, silver, platinum & palladium at a glance:

• Did you know? The purchase of investment gold is exempt from VAT
• Purchase of historical gold coins or old gold subject to VAT
• Investment gold is bars and typical investment coins such as Krugerrand
• Purchase of silver and other precious metal bars taxed at the regular VAT rate of 19%.
• Silver and platinum coins often with favourable differential taxation
• Tip: If you keep precious metals for 1 year, the resulting profits are always tax-free – more on this later, in the question: Are profits from gold sales tax-free?

What is the purpose of money? Basis gold

What is the purpose of money and why do many not have any? In a nutshell, it’s this: money is a form of energy. Here are some thoughts from episode 15: What is money and why don’t most people have it?

Money is a voucher that gets its value only and exclusively from people’s trust in it.

Source: Alex Fischer – Reicher als die Geissens (Book).

The road to money is long, if you mentally get into its basics. For example, the question: What is trust? Firmly convinced of the reliability, trust you get when you are able to foresee the actions, behaviors or regularities.

Banking system: emergence

How did the first banks come into being? The answer lies with goldsmiths. They stored jewelry for people, like rings. People got receipts for them, which they could redeem. Travel was much easier this way, receipts instead of “a chest full of gold”. Goldsmiths realized that never all people redeemed their vouchers at the same time, so the idea was born to issue different vouchers for the same item – hoping, of course, that they would never all be redeemed at the same time. These vouchers were issued for interest. This is how the credit system came into being.

The blacksmith lends money that is not his, hoping to get it back with interest.

What precious metals are there?

Popular precious metals are mainly:

1. Gold: The classic among the precious metals
2. Platinum: (still) in demand in the automotive industry
3. Palladium:Alternative to platinum
4. Silver: Only with specialist knowledge

Precious metals can be used as a form of investment by the investor without much know-how (silver is an exception).

Unlike investments such as classic cars or art, a concrete value is tangible and is determined daily on the stock exchanges of this world. Investors only have to follow the current share price. But be careful: High fluctuations in the price of gold (and other precious metals) are also possible here, the risk is therefore medium to high (for silver, for example).

The return is medium depending on the price development. The return on precious metals is medium to high, depending on the price development, as is the risk of precious metals. Precious metals are an attractive form of investment worldwide. It can be used at short notice, without great know-how. Through stock exchanges and trading, concrete values are at your fingertips at any time. You as an investor only have to follow the share price. Of course, there are also risks with precious metals as well as the generally high fluctuations, as known from the gold price.

Advantages of precious metals

• Gold is mainly bought in times of crisis, thus the price development is often opposite to the stock prices (accordingly predictable)
• Palladium is very interesting because it can replace platinum in industry
• Platinum is particularly rare and valuable (as can be seen with cars as a capital investment or also with art as a capital investment, rarity is a top indicator), accordingly palladium is also such an interesting substitute.
• Silver is subject to strong price fluctuations in the everyday life of the stock exchanges, this opens up yield opportunities, but also carries risks, as can be seen immediately in the disadvantages.

Disadvantages of precious metals

• As described above, gold is subject to large fluctuations in contrast to equities. Major gains may therefore take a few decades to materialise.
• Palladium, like many important raw materials (coltan, etc.), is mined especially in crisis regions; the working situation of the local people is viewed critically.
• Platinum is used for jewellery, but mainly in the car industry, so platinum is very dependent on it
• Silver is subject to strong price fluctuations and is very dependent on the given economic situation, accordingly a lot of attention is required from you as an investor in trading.

The most valuable gemstones

1. The Pink Star (Diamond) for 67 million euros
2. Lesedi La Rona for 64 million euros
3. The Constellation for €55.2 million
4. Oppenheimer Blue for €50.81 million
5. Blue Moon of Josephine for 45 million euros
6. Fancy Intense Pink for 34 Million Euros
7. De Beers Millennium Jewel 4 for 28 million euros
8. The Unique Pink for 27.8 million euros
9. Orange diamond for 26.5 million euros
10. Blue diamond for 26.3 million euros

Source: Gevestor.com

Gold, Silver & Co.

How much gold is mined in a year?

Period	Delivery rate in thousand tons		Delivery rate in tons per year		Relation
	Gold	Silver	Gold	Silver
until 500 A.D.	10	50	2	14	1 to 7
until 15th century	2,5	205	3	210	1 at 82
until 18th century	4,4	175	14	570	1 to 40
19th century	12	160	120	1600	1 to 13
20th century	113	872	1.130	8.720	1 to 8
2001 until 2011	28	226	2.545	20.545	1 to 8
Total	169	1.689	–	–	1 in 10

Source: Goldsilbershop.de

Data: Markt-Daten.de (Internet: markt-daten.de, retrieved 01.10.2012); Silberinfo.com (2009), World Gold Production – Historical (Internet: www. silberinfo.com/gold/bilanz.html, retrieved 01.10.2012); Silberinfo.com (2009), World Silver Production – Historical (Internet: www.silberinfo.com/silber/bilanz.html, retrieved 01.10.2012).

Goldnugget

Is the sale of gold taxable?

Gold, like all other precious metals, is subject to taxes. But there are exceptions. Did you already know? The taxation of gold sales does not apply if your profit does not exceed the legal exemption limit in the trade. This is currently 600 euros. After the holding period of one year, the profit from a sale is tax-free. The regulation applies to investment gold as well as to old gold.

Precious metal	Purchase from dealer	Duty-free warehouse
Gold coins	tax-free (investment gold)	tax-free
Gold bars	tax-free (investment gold)	tax-free
Silver coins	plus 19 % VAT or differential taxation	tax-free
Silver bars	plus 19 % VAT	tax-free
Silver coin bars	plus 19 % VAT or differential taxation	tax-free
Platinum coins	plus 19 % VAT or differential taxation	tax-free
Platinum bars	plus 19 % VAT	tax-free
Palladium	plus 19 % VAT (coins and bars)	tax-free
Rhodium	plus 19 % VAT (coins and bars)	tax-free

Source: Gold.de

Silver

Current rate

Source: ImmoAO

Gold rate

1000 gram gold bar

Silver rate

1000 gram silver bar

Platinum rate

1000 gram platinum bar

Palladium exchange rate

500 gram palladium bars