While the following content is intended to be educational, it does contain promotional material for Kaldi.

Gold has had, by any reasonable measure, a completely unhinged couple of years. The price climbed over 55% in 2025 alone, reaching $4,000 (£2,990) an ounce for the first time. It has set repeated records and then dropped several hundred dollars (£200-plus) in a single afternoon, which is the kind of sentence that should put people off a bit, but somehow hasn't. When everything feels unstable, gold feels ancient and solid and reassuring. The question is whether that feeling is a good reason to buy some.

Why is everyone suddenly talking about gold?

Gold is currently sitting at around $5,100 an ounce, which means it has gained more than $2,130 in the past year alone. That is, by any reasonable measure, a lot. 

The reasons are roughly what you'd expect from a list of things that make people anxious: U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran, an unstable dollar and the kind of geopolitical instability that sends investors sprinting toward anything that feels solid and old and not made of numbers on a screen. 

Gold has been the beneficiary of basically every bad headline going, which might explain why it’s in the news more and more, and why this article exists.

So, what is gold as an investment?

When most people picture investing in gold, they picture a vault. Bars of the stuff, stacked up somewhere cool and underground, with your name on one of them. 

This is technically an option. You can buy physical gold, from coins and bars to chunks of the stuff, and then store it, either at home (not recommended, for obvious reasons) or via a specialist storage service that will charge you for the privilege of looking after it. 

There is also the question of what you do with a bar of gold when you want to sell it. You find a buyer. You arrange a valuation. You post it, presumably with a lot of insurance, or you drive it somewhere. It's a whole thing.

The more common and modern approach is a gold ETF, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of gold without you owning any of the physical metal. There's a debate about whether "paper gold" is as good as the real thing, but for most people who aren’t actively planning for civilisational collapse, an ETF gets you the price exposure without the logistical nightmare of owning an actual commodity.

Can anyone just... invest in gold?

Sort of. You can buy gold ETFs through lots of investment platforms, the same ones you'd use for stocks or index funds. You'll need an account and to go through the usual identity checks before buying in. The minimum is generally whatever one unit of the ETF costs, which ranges from a few pounds to a few hundred depending on which one you pick.

Physical gold is slightly more involved, as those shiny gold coins are considered collectibles and can carry a higher value per ounce than bars. But then there's VAT to consider, not to mention storage costs and the general hassle of owning a thing that has no practical use but must be kept very safe. It's accessible in theory. In practice, it's a bit of a project.

The case for gold (to be fair to it)

Gold does have a genuine use in a portfolio, which is that it tends to move differently to stocks and bonds. When economic uncertainty rises and inflation erodes confidence in paper money, gold tends to hold its value.  It's been doing this reliably for centuries. That’s more than you can say for most things. 

Central banks around the world are buying it in enormous quantities, which is worth noting. When the people who manage entire national economies decide they want more of something, that's at least a data point.

Fund managers argue that gold's recent record highs aren't just a panic spike and reflect deeper concerns about monetary policy credibility, sovereign debt and persistent geopolitical instability, none of which are going away any time soon. So as a small piece of a diversified portfolio, financial advisors generally don't think it's a terrible idea.

The case against (now, this is the real point)

From January 1971 to December 2024, the S&P 500 delivered an annualised return of 11.01%*, while according to Fortune Magazine over the same period “gold’s was 7.9%”.

*Investment returns can vary and are not guaranteed, with periods of downs and ups. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Based on dividends being reinvested and shown in US Dollars. Currency fluctuations will apply. Returns listed gross of fees.

It's ultimately a bet on the world getting worse, and historically, over long enough time horizons, the world has mostly gotten better. Slowly, unevenly, with plenty of horrible years along the way. But better.

There's also the question of timing. After gold's recent surge, some analysts have openly said it may already be too late for investors seeking significant near-term gains, with the initial surge potentially having been fuelled as much by sentiment as by fundamentals. 

Buying gold right now, at these prices, because you read about it in the news, is essentially the opposite of the strategy that got early buyers those returns. That's not a reason to never buy it. It is, however, a reason to be honest about why you're buying it.

What you should probably do instead

If you’re new to investing and only just got your head around stocks and shares, the idea of having to figure gold out too is enough to send you running. Fortunately, you don’t really need to worry about it. 

If you want your money to do something, anything, an index fund might serve you better in the long run. 

An index fund, you say?

An index fund is a basket of hundreds of companies. Some will have bad years. Most will just get on with it. Over time, the overall direction has historically been up. And, unlike gold, you're not entirely dependent on global anxiety staying elevated for that to continue. You're just betting on the general concept of commerce existing, which is a bet that has, so far, kept paying out.

And Kaldi can help?

Kaldi doesn't pick individual shares or attempt to outsmart markets that have been humbling professional fund managers for decades. Instead, you choose from a small range of funds, including the Vanguard LifeStrategy and FTSE Global All Cap index funds, an HSBC Islamic Global Equity option, an L&G Socially Responsible index fund, and a couple of money market funds if you want something lower risk. Diversified, low-cost, and not dependent on the world getting scarier to perform.

Your cashback, round-ups and top-ups land in your savings balance first, then move into your chosen fund once you invest. Switch on auto-invest and it happens monthly once your balance hits £20. 

Capital at risk when investing.

That's it. No vault required. Learn more about how Kaldi works here.

It doesn’t always have to be as good as gold

Gold requires a view on geopolitics, a tolerance for volatility and possibly a secure storage facility. Investing in an index fund with Kaldi requires a phone. One requires you to follow every central bank announcement, while the other takes the things you're already doing – like spending day-to-day – and invests the spare change and cashback so you can build money over the long term.

Capital is at risk when investing. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you put in. This article is for information only and not personal financial advice. If you're unsure what's right for your situation, it's worth speaking to a qualified financial adviser.