So sulavaca’s preaching has rubbed off and I’ve opened a gold account at HSBC. But it’s apparently linked to my USD account. Since I’m not a US citizen (I’m British) and since I also have no intention of leaving Taiwan in the short or (hopefully) long term, I was hoping I could open a gold account that’s linked only to my TWD.
Was wondering what others’ experiences are like in this area, and especially would like to hear how sulavaca protects himself against fluctuations in foreign currency vs. TWD if he’s buying gold with USD.
Gold is supposed to be a hedge against inflation and quantitative easing. As such it should perform better against most currencies. Asian currencies have shown rapid appreciation against Western currencies but currencies like TWD have to keep within a certain range of USD to remain competitive for exporters (although it’s still appreciating slowly but surely). Surprisingly the USD might appreciate over the next year, it’s always hard to predict these things (as the Eurozone is messed up even more). If you have a lot of USD it might be best to keep it in USD or gold, I wouldn’t switch to another currency.