Is investing in gold a matter of age?

Gold is considered the world’s oldest asset and means of payment - is it possibly too old-fashioned for young investors who may be more interested in Bitcoin & Co? Two studies did pursue this question in recent years: in 2016 the World Gold Council asked a total of 8000 millennial incestors (young investors aged 18 - 34) from Germany, China, India and the USA about their investment plans considering gold and compared the results with already existing survey results with older investors. The second survey, this time limited to US millennials, was conducted by the US investment firm Legg Mason 2017.

German and Indian Millennials favour gold most

The World Gold Council’s study concluded that there are no significant differences in the investment behaviour of investors of different ages. At most, the geographical characteristics were noteworthy: Indian and German young investors were more interested in gold than their peers in China and the USA. While an average of 16 percent of the respondents planned to buy physical gold, and 6 percent gold to purchase ETFs or ETCs, in Germany and India 19 percent were interested in gold coins and bullions.

U.S.-based Millennials show far above-average interest in gold

The survey conducted by Legg Mason revealed the rather surprising finding that the young investors surveyed favour gold significantly more than the average U.S. citizen: while 23 per cent of the overall population picked gold as one of their “top three best investment opportunities” over the next 12-month period, 34 per cent of the millennial investors did so.

The two studies cannot be compared 1:1 - the questions were too different for that - but they clearly show that interest in gold as an investment is not a question of age.