YOUR GUIDE TO INVESTING IN GOLDBought to you by the Gold & Alternative Assets Conference, your meeting place for investing in gold

To register go to goldevent.com.au

2

Thanks for downloading Your Guide to Investing in Gold.

“The reason I wanted to give you this information is because many, many people I come across have no idea about gold or why they should even care.

When I talk to them about fiat currency and global debt, the penny starts to drop and they want to know more but few have even a basic understanding

of the how, what and where to start investing in gold.

This e-book is designed to give you a starting place – the first step in learning how to get your hands on gold in all its many formats.”

— Kerry Stevenson, Founder, Gold and Alternative Investments Conference —

Connect with us!

3

I’m a businessperson and an investor. In my discussions with friends, family and professional colleagues, there’s a feeling that it’s getting harder to get ahead in Australia.

From an investment point of view, there are a few subjects that come up time and time again. People seem to be worried about:

• Low interest rates It’s pretty hard to save in the bank when interest rates barely cover inflation, and this looks like it’s going to get worse not better in the coming years.

• Housing correction Prices went up for so long most of us thought it would continue forever. But on the East Coast, Sydney prices are down 15% from their peak now, with Melbourne not far behind. Who knows when it will stop?

• Australian dollar weakening Policy makers seem determined to push the value of our currency down. Sure, it will help in some ways, but if currency weakness was the solution to all our problems, Venezuela and Zimbabwe would be the most prosperous countries on earth. We import a lot of stuff in this country, and it will all get more expensive with a lower currency.

• Stock Market Volatility Before the Global Financial Crisis hit, it seemed like the stock market just went up, up, up. Nowadays there is a lot more uncertainty in financial markets, and investors are looking for alternatives to protect and grow their wealth.

• Political Uncertainty Is the political chaos of the last few years over? No one I speak too seems convinced, and there are quite a few policies that aren’t exactly business friendly on the agenda.

Whilst we all no doubt wish times were better, we can only play the cards we’ve been dealt.

In our opinion, gold is one asset class that can help investors during this difficult time. In the 10 years that I’ve been running Symposium, we’ve seen five key reasons resonate with investors as to why they should be looking at gold, which are;

• Strong long-term returns gold generates

• Diversification from financial market risk

• Strong returns when interest rates are low

• Currency Diversification

• Simplicity and Tangibility

We cover each of these factors in more detail in this e-book. We hope you find it an informative read.

One of the best ways to understand about gold is to educate yourself and we would love to welcome you to this year’s Gold and Alternative Investments Conference, which will be held at the Sofitel Wentworth Hotel from the 24th to 26th October 2019.

This is a great way for first time investors to come and meet others who have already invested or newcomers like yourself that just need more information.

HOWEVER like all financial decisions, please make sure you get proper advice – we don’t want you to sell the car and the children to buy gold.

We are also not financial advisers, just keen investors who like you, want to be better educated.

Regards,

Kerry Stevenson

Founder Gold and Alternative Investments Conference

Returning more than 8% per annum over the last fifteen years, gold has more than doubled the return on cash and has also outperformed returns on traditional superannuation funds.

4

ETFs

If you don’t want to buy gold directly from a bullion dealer, the other option is to buy gold ETFs. ETF stands for exchange traded fund, and they can be bought via your stockbroker as easily as buying shares in Commonwealth Bank or BHP.

The advantage of these products is they are easy to buy (if you already have a brokerage account), though you end up owning a share in an instrument that tracks the price of gold, rather than a gold bar itself.

The three ETFs available in Australia are issued by The Perth Mint ASX:PMGOLD, ETF Securities ASX:GOLD, and Betashares ASX:QAU. The Perth Mint’s ETF is the cheapest and safest (in my view), the ETF Securities product is the largest in terms of total dollars invested, whilst QAU is currency hedged, meaning as an investor, you get the USD return on gold.

Digital Gold

A third option that is increasingly popular for investors these days is to buy gold via a digital savings app, or a gold ‘savings account’.

The Perth Mint and ABC Bullion offer these options, with The Perth Mint’s GoldPass® app (which you can download from the App Store or get via Google Play) allowing you to buy digital gold certificates, with the certificates backed by physical metal stored by The Perth Mint.

The ABC Bullion Gold saver isn’t a digital offering per se, but it’s a good mechanism for allowing regular savings in gold, with investors able to invest fixed dollar amounts on a weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis.

Gold Mining Shares

Another way to invest in gold is via the share market. Why would you do this? Well most people look at this as a way of leveraging the gold price via a gold mining company.

There are many cost effective online brokers such as ANZ or Commsec here in Australia or go to asx.com.au for a list of brokers who can advise you on buying gold shares.

Please make sure that you do your due diligence here as not all gold mining companies are the same. The highest risk in this space are the explorers followed by the developers and finally the producers some of whom such as Evolution

WHAT TYPE OF GOLD SHOULD I BUY?

Physical gold

There are different types and ways to buy gold. There is what we call physical gold which can be purchased from bullion dealers around the world.

In Australia, the largest 2 are:

The Perth Mint ABC Bullion

You can buy gold online or walk in and buy it direct. Bear in mind that any transactions over AUD $5,000 will require full ID checks etc. There are also a myriad of different products for gold such as gold bars or coins all in different sizes and years.

Once you have bought your physical gold, you can take a chance and store it in a “safe” place at home (not recommended) or use the vaulting services of the company you bought from. Alternately, find a secure storage facility close to where you live so you can go and look at those gorgeous gold bars you now own!

Your other option is to keep your gold with a bullion dealer, which saves you from having to store if yourself. Bullion dealers typically offer unallocated gold and allocated gold, though some companies come up with their own names for these programs.

Allocated gold is where you own a specific bar or coin, which is assigned to you. You’ll be charged a fee for this, but the upside is that in any event something happened to the bullion dealer (bankruptcy and the like) your gold should be safe, as its ‘ring-fenced’ from the company’s assets.

Unallocated gold is where you don’t own a specific bar, rather you own a claim on gold via the company you are storing it with. In this situation, you won’t pay a fee, but you’re at risk if something goes wrong with the company, as you are most likely an unsecured creditor.

Therefore, you’d want to make sure the company is trustworthy. Things to consider include how long they’ve been in business for, do they publish their financials, are their metal holdings audited etc.

It’s up to you as an individual which of these options you’d rather choose – unallocated, allocated with a bullion dealer, storage at home, or storage in a vault.

FIRST UP; SOME BASICS

5

Mining ASX:EVN pay their dividends in actual gold which is very handy if you want exposure to the physical gold as well as leverage via the shares.

Strong Long-Term Returns

Gold has delivered extremely solid returns over the long-run. From the year 2000 to the end of 2018, the gold price in Australian dollars has risen from just under AUD $450 per ounce to over AUD $1800 per ounce. That is a total increase of over 300%, with gold outperforming most other asset classes including Australian property.

To put the performance of gold relative to other assets that Australians invest in into perspective it’s worth looking at the table below which shows the returns over 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and 15 years for gold compared to other more traditional assets including the stock market, Australian housing and superannuation funds.

AND NOW FOR SOME DEEPER INSIGHTS

1 year 3 year 5 year 10 year 15 year

Gold 9.51 7.64 6.18 4.05 8.23

Australian Shares -3.10 6.70 5.60 8.90 8.20

Cash 1.90 1.90 2.20 3.10 4.10

Australian Housing -5.15 2.34 4.45 4.90 4.57

Superannuation Funds 0.80 6.20 6.50 7.90 7.00

Source: World Gold Council, Chant West Growth Superannuation Funds

As you can see, in both the short-term (1 to 3 years) and long term (15 years), the return on gold has been higher than every other asset class represented. Returning more than 8% per annum over the last fifteen years, it has more than doubled the return on cash and has also outperformed returns on traditional superannuation funds.

With historical returns like these, it’s easy to see investors are turning to gold as part of their investment portfolio.

Gold Diversifies Stock Market Risk

Not putting all your eggs in one basket is an investment truism that we all need to be aware of. In an ideal world we’d put all our money into whatever asset class was going to go up the most. In reality though, that strategy is extremely risky and for every one person that hits the jackpot doing it, there are a hundred more that ruin their finances.

AVERAGE RETURN DURING WORST STOCK MARKET YEARS

EQUITIES-24.4%

GOLD38.5%

Source: World Gold Council, IRESS, Global Financial Data

6

Whilst there is nothing any one of us can do about interest rates (well I suppose you could try and get on the RBA board and vote for higher interest rates) there are investment decisions we ARE in control of.

Gold is worth looking at in this context because it tends to perform incredibly well when “real” interest rates are low. When you stop to think about it it’s no surprise why.

Low rates frustrate savers so they look for alternative assets, withdrawing money from the bank (since it is hardly paying any interest), and investing in other asset classes.

Gold typically benefits from this, which is also no surprise, as the whole reason interest rates are so low is because the economy is weak and investors turn to safe haven assets.

Well that’s a great theory but what does the data say?

I’m glad you asked because the data tells us that whenever interest rates are below 2% for a year the average return for gold is more than 20%. That is not a misprint! An average return of over 20%. This doesn’t mean gold can’t fall in price when interest rates are so low but history is on the side of gold investors right now.

Given interest rates are set to be cut even further in Australia and may well remain low for years to come, all savers should be thinking about what to do with at least some of their cash.

Currency Diversification

One of the things investors tend to do is adopt what’s called a “home country bias” where nearly all their investments are denominated in the currency of the country they live in. In many ways this makes sense, after all, if you are buying a property you’re naturally going to want some local knowledge of the suburb it’s in.

Even with shares, it helps if the company we buy stock in does business in the country we live in whilst trading costs, taxes etc can all get more expensive or complicated once we go offshore.

Whilst that’s all well and good, it does leave us exposed if the currency itself falls which is a real risk for Australian investors today.

This is where gold can help as it is a natural currency hedge for Australian investors with any falls in the value of the AUD boosting the price of gold.

Diversification is the key. There is no problem investing in traditional assets like shares and housing but it’s important to spread the risk. This is where gold comes in as it has proved to be a very effective portfolio diversifier and it tends to increase in value when other assets like shares are falling.

What this means is that if you invest some money in gold, your overall wealth is likely be protected better than if it was all in stocks for example. To help visualise this, the chart below highlights the average return in both shares and in gold during the 5 worst calendar years in the share market since the 1970s.

As you can see, the average fall during the worst years for the stock market was almost 25%. That would have been a quarter of your wealth wiped out if you were 100% invested in the market. However, had you had some money in gold you’d have done much better as the average return for gold during those years was up almost 40%.

When the stock market rises, then yes, gold will likely not do as well but the lesson from the above is clear; including gold in your portfolio helps balance out your investment returns protecting wealth when it matters most.

Gold performs when interest rates are low

As I mentioned at the start of this e-book, one of the main pain points for investors these days is the all-time low cash rates they can get for money they are saving in the bank. This is made worse due to the impact of inflation, which destroys the value of our money over time.

Indeed, in Australia right now the “real” rate of interest is basically zero because whilst official interest rates are 1.50%, the inflation rate is 1.30%.

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019

1.2

1.1

1.0

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

AUD USD FX RATE

Source: World Gold Council

AND NOW FOR SOME DEEPER INSIGHTS

7

Die Hard, the reality is you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in gold with many bullion dealers offering accounts that you can open with as little as $50.

A potential fall in the value of the AUD is a real risk in the years ahead with Australia going through a period of slower growth with house prices falling and the RBA likely to cut interest rates even further.

As to how far the currency could fall, consider the chart below which plots the value of the AUD vs. the USD over the past 25 years.

It’s almost 20 years ago now but before our commodity boom started the AUD was only worth USD $0.50 having fallen from around USD $0.70 in the mid 1990s.

It could happen again and if it does, gold investors will benefit as it will give a huge boost to the AUD gold price.

Simple and Tangible Investment

A final factor that is attracting investors to gold is that it is a simple and tangible investment. It is incredibly easy to buy from major bullion dealers, most of whom will also provide storage facilities so you don’t even have to worry about where to store it.

No need to dig holes in the backyard!

Anyone can buy gold too. Whilst we’ve all seen the big gold bars that Mark Wahlberg and Jeremy Irons try to steal in movies like the Italian Job and

“In the absence of a gold standard, there is no way

to protect savings from confiscation through

inflation. There is no safe store of value.”

DR ALAN GREENSPAN

To learn more and to stay ahead of the game, make sure you register

for this year’s Gold and Alternative Investments Conference being held at the Sofitel Sydney from Thursday 24th

to Saturday 26th October.

Our partner, Gold Industry Group will host a pre-event social on the evening

of Wednesday 23rd October

To register, CLICK HERE or go to goldevent.com.au

In association with Sponsored by

8

BENEFITS TO ATTENDING THIS CONFERENCE

Most people don’t fully understand that the global economy is drowning in debt. History shows us that holding gold as an investment to keep and grow your wealth should be an important part of your strategy.

Attending the conference will give seasoned investors access to top level connections and deals in the gold sector. Newcomers to the industry will learn the fundamentals of why gold should be a part of everyone’s portfolio especially in these volatile economic times.

When you register for the conference you will be able to enter into the competition to win gold and silver bullion. During the conference there will be plenty more opportunities to win bullion.

There will also be an app where you can create your own schedule and reach out and interact with other like-minded investors and newcomers to the sector.

We encourage you to ask questions. There are no dumb questions because each time a question is asked someone learns from you asking the question

Your conference ticket gives you access to all the presentations as well as the exhibition and morning and afternoon tea and a full buffet style lunch on all three days

We look forward to helping you on your investing journey. Bona fide investors benefit from a heavily subsidised conference ticket.

NB: we are NOT financial advisors please do not take anything you read for granted. Do your own due diligence and make sure that, like any investment, you are aware of all the risks.

This is the only conference in Australia focused on gold as an investment.

+61 1300 910 389 goldevent.com.au info@symposium.net.au

CONNECT WITH US!

GOLD FACTS

Gold is the only metal that is yellow or “golden.” Other metals may develop a yellowish colour, but only after they have oxidized or reacted with other chemicals.

The element symbol for gold is Au. The symbol comes from the old Latin name for gold, aurum, which means “shining dawn” or “glow of sunrise.”

Gold is extremely ductile. A single ounce of gold (about 28 grams) can be stretched into a gold thread 5 miles (8 km) long. Gold threads can even be used as embroidery thread.

Malleability is a measure of how easily a material can be hammered into thin sheets. Gold is the most malleable element. A single ounce of gold can be beaten out into a sheet that is 300 square feet. A sheet of gold can be made thin enough to be transparent. Very thin sheets of gold may appear greenish blue because gold strongly reflects red and yellow.

Although gold is a heavy, dense metal, it is generally considered non-toxic. Gold metal flakes may be eaten in foods or drinks.

24 karat gold is pure elemental gold. 18 karat gold is 75% pure gold. 14 karat gold is 58.5% pure gold, and 10 karat gold is 41.7% pure gold. The remaining portion of the metal usually is silver, but may consist of other metals or a combination of metals, such as platinum, copper, palladium, zinc, nickel, iron, and cadmium.

Gold is a noble metal. It is relatively unreactive and resists degradation by air, moisture, or acidic conditions. While acids dissolve most metals, a special mixture of acids called aqua regia is used to dissolve gold.

Gold has many uses aside from its monetary and symbolic value. Among other applications, it is used in electronics, electrical wiring, dentistry, electronics, medicine, radiation shielding, and to colour glass.