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buy 30 South African gold coin said: ‘The beauty of Gold is, it loves bad news!’ [6] Many researches tried to identify Gold feature testing Gold role as strategic financial asset.

As Peter Bernholz affirms writing its ‘Monetary regimes and Inflation [7] ’ opera, ‘During inflation an undervaluation of the paper money develops compared to gold, silver or copper specie or to more stable paper money’. Gold has historically been an effective instrument to hedge against increasing inflation thanks to its strong correlation with the consumer price index.

Source: Chris Riley, A New Gold Rush, Investing in Precious Metals

This ‘inflation fighter’ ability is given by Gold’s ability to retain its purchasing power and its well known scarcity.

Moreover, as Gold is quoted in dollars, there’s always been a strong negative correlation between the precious metal and the U.S. currency. The more dollar de-evaluates, the most the assets quoted in this currency have to increase their price in order to preserve their real value [8] .

Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Edward Wood in their opera ‘Financial crises and the world banking system [9] ’ analyzed Gold peculiarity of being an exchange rate protection. Historical data confirm this strong inverse correlation between dollar and Gold price even if, there are periods in history when this relationship has failed.

Anyway Gold has not drawn the attention of many investors class just for its ‘inflation fighter’ and ‘exchange rate protector’ features.

The Flight-to-quality is a phenomenon occurring on the financial markets during times characterized by stock market turbulence or distress and a consequent strong uncertainty feeling within the investors. Uncertainty feeling performing on the market generally leads investors questioning about their risk exposure shifting their interest from risky assets to other investment solutions perceived as more safe.

The most common route followed during “Flight-to-quality” periods takes place between equities and more liquid, less risky investment assets such as cash and cash equivalents instruments or government securities. Anyway, during times of uncertainty and risk aversion, the attractiveness of Gold may increase thanks to its greater sense of certainty and the relative simplicity advocates for Gold investments.

The main source of Gold’s reputation as a simple investment product is due to the fact that Gold is a physical asset. As real estate or other commodities, Gold has an intrinsic value that doesn’t depend from future dividends or coupon payments. It doesn’t carry any risk of default, sovereign or reinvestment risk. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where Gold could become worthless.

Anyway, focusing on the features that give credit to Gold as an ‘easy to invest’ asset, it is necessary to underline that these give back the precious metal as a non-conservative investment. In fact, receiving no interest or dividends, many Gold buyers are just speculating on price appreciation and they loose their interest very quickly if it doesn’t happen. In a paradoxical way, Gold can be considered as one of the most conservative asset as well as a very risky speculative investment.

Supporting Gold ‘double essence’ it is relevant to quote James Ross McCowon and John R. Zimmerman which, analyzing the investment potential