Gold's Spread Into The Financial-Planning Arena Meets Resistance

Interest in gold is spreading beyond the usual confines; an Orlando Sentinel article provides further confirmation of this trend in the financial-planning field:

At least one-third of Kimberly Sterling's clients have sought her advice in the past year about investing in gold. The Orlando financial planner has successfully discouraged all but one of them from doing so.

That one investor insisted on having some gold in his portfolio, she said, despite her warnings. Eventually, she referred him to a gold-commodities exchange-traded fund that has done well during the metal's decade-long runup in price. But her firm, Resource Consulting Group, still wouldn't buy in; it would only make the referral.

"Our bottom line is this: Gold is a bubble now, and it is too late to get in," she said recently. "It is like someone who bought real estate in 2006, at the height of that bubble. You could get hurt really badly."

The article highlighting her shows that the gold-as-insurance trend has some ways to go. Also featured is another financial planner who's pro-gold, but advises no more than 10% of holdings to be put in the metal.


Regarding Ms. Sterling's call, I have only this to say: it would be far more plausible if she had successfully dissuaded no-one. That's more like what housing was like in 2005.