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seemed like a one-way bet, but most people have more than enough exposure to the property market through their own home. Having no exposure to property and a large equity exposure could also be risky, but having a mixture of uncorrelated assets would have reduced the pain of the property market or share market falls. Gold in particular has benefited from the fall in relative value of western currencies.

Financial advisors often provide a range of different suggested portfolio distributions depending on the income requirements and risk profile of the investor, how long before the money is required and what volatility or losses could be tolerated. Generally higher risk portfolios will consist of smaller shares or foreign equities and high-yield or emerging market bonds, income portfolios are usually blue-chip shares and bonds and low risk portfolios mostly government bonds and cash.

In all cases mixing many assets with low correlation from different countries and different industries will reduce the risk. Gold is uncorrelated to other asset classes and tends to retain value even when other types of fiat money fall in value. Many advisors recommend having 5% to 10% of gold, silver and other precious metals in your investment portfolio. This can be in the form of mining shares, ETFs, mutual funds although at least some of it should be in the form of real physical gold.

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