Investing in gold or USD, which is the solution that benefits workers?

Ms. NHTr, 40 years old, and her husband own a small fruit stall in a temporary market in Thu Duc. Her monthly income is about 15-17 million VND, which helps her stabilize her life and save a little. Although she is not knowledgeable about finance, she hopes to invest and save in the hope of making a profit or at least keeping her safe when an economic crisis or inflation unfortunately strikes.

Some salaried workers and small traders often think that they can only invest profitably when they have a “good income”. That is a wrong view. It can always be started regardless of whether the income is high or low. In Vietnam, investing in gold or USD is easier than other channels such as real estate and bonds.

Investing in gold or USD is a profitable solution for workers, picture 1 — Many people want to learn about suitable investment channels.

Is gold investment stable?

Investing in gold brings the highest stability, regardless of inflation or political and social fluctuations. In Vietnam, gold bars distributed by reputable units such as SJC or PNJ are often of interest. The most popular are 5-chi and 1-tael gold bars. From the beginning of 2023 until now, the price of gold has fluctuated around 68 million VND/tael, but during Tet it reached 70 million VND/tael, or even more.

For ordinary workers, gold accumulation has many levels, even starting from 1 tael of gold, equivalent to 6.8 million VND, an amount suitable for many people. The advantage of gold is that it can be easily bought and sold with very little price difference. In addition, its stable value, regardless of inflation or economic crisis, makes gold always the standard currency, not losing value.

Even when major events such as war, inflation, and political crisis occur, the price of gold still tends to increase. For example, the war between Russia and Ukraine pushed the price to skyrocket to 1,970 USD/ounce while before that, the price only fluctuated around 1,700 USD/ounce. Therefore, people like Ms. NHTr are more interested in hoarding gold. However, investing in gold also has certain risks such as the fact that the price of gold in Vietnam is often different, even opposite to the world gold price.

Investing in gold or USD is a profitable solution for workers, picture 2 — Is gold investment an effective and reasonable investment channel?

Gold investors who do not have much experience can easily make wrong buying and selling decisions if they only rely on information about world gold prices. In addition, gold itself does not generate passive income for investors like renting out houses or saving money. Investors must proactively analyze and choose the most appropriate time to buy and sell. Finally, storing gold is a security challenge. Currently, most banks do not accept gold savings deposits, and if they do, the fees are also quite high. If you store gold yourself at home, you must have a secret and safe storage solution, but no matter what, people like Ms. H.Tr are always worried and afraid of losing it.

Is it difficult to invest in USD?

Compared to gold, investing in USD also has many advantages such as high stability and many denominations for easy accumulation. Saving a large amount of money is difficult, sometimes they can only arrange a few million VND, not enough to buy gold or real estate but just enough to accumulate USD. However, buying and selling USD in our country is quite difficult because the State Bank of Vietnam does not encourage USD investment. Besides, the price difference when buying and selling USD is not really too high. The difference from about 23,681 VND/USD at the end of 2022 compared to 23,770 VND/USD in mid-2023 does not bring much profit. In addition, there are currently many types of old and new USD in circulation, so the valuation also has some differences, even the old money sometimes costs tens of thousands of dong lower than the new money of equivalent value.

Should I invest and keep gold or USD?

Obviously, both gold and USD have stable and long-term accumulation value. But from the perspective of workers in general, it is clear that investing in gold can bring more benefits and more opportunities to make a profit than buying and selling USD. It is predicted that in the near future, bank interest rates may continue to decrease and this will make gold storage even more profitable. At that time, of course, the price of gold will continue to increase, possibly even up to 80 million VND/tael if the world situation has many fluctuations.

However, many experts say that salaried workers and street vendors should prepare a financial rescue channel in case of emergencies where it is not convenient to sell gold or USD to resolve the situation.

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