Buying gold via SBI Securities

[TokyoBoglehead]

I don’t see gold as productive either, but that isn’t my criteria for owning something. I have some yen sitting in the bank too. (I believe the current incarnation of Japan’s currency has been going for about 3/4 of a century now, but gold has been regarded as money for much longer, not to mention outperforming the yen in recent times.)

But that aside, going from the https://myindex.jp/ assets allocation tool, adding 10% gold to a global equities portfolio looks like it would have produced marginally better returns for marginally lower risk over the past 20 years. I don’t have 10% and don’t plan to have 10%, but I don’t see it as un-beneficial from that perspective.

I'm with you sutebayashi. I always like to have some gold in my portfolio for peace of mind. I've been buying it in small amounts with yen every month for about 20 years now. It hasn't done as well as equities (9% vs 11% per year in yen terms, and the fees are higher as has been mentioned) but that's not really the point. It's a great diversifier, and performs very well in certain market conditions. Just looking at my Q1 portfolio check, I see that I currently have 9% of my total investment portfolio in gold (15% if you don't include physical investment property). I'm fairly happy with that amount, and I'll probably continue to buy a little each month from now despite it being at all-time highs. "Make a plan > stick to the plan > rebalance when necessary" is my mantra!

Why not etfs and trusts? Precious metal reserves have so many disadvantages. That's my point here.

[northSaver]

Why not etfs and trusts? Precious metal reserves have so many disadvantages. That's my point here.

Oh sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't buy physical gold. Only gold ETFs and MFs.

[TokyoBoglehead]

Why not etfs and trusts? Precious metal reserves have so many disadvantages. That's my point here.

Oh sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't buy physical gold. Only gold ETFs and MFs.

Ah gotcha!

[adamu]

rebalance when necessary

This needs to be more concrete to be useful IMO. I.e. you need a rebalance timescale or an asset allocation threshold for when to rebalance. Otherwise in sudden market movements you are going to be stuck making a market timing decision. That is what happened to me multiple times with crypto when looking at 1000+% returns in very short timescales and having to decide whether to "rebalance" and scupper future returns, or risk a wipeout. Probably less likely to happen with gold, but it's still completely overvalued and could theoretically tumble (or explode) in price faster than your rebalancing schedule could deal with.

[TokyoBoglehead]

rebalance when necessary

This needs to be more concrete to be useful IMO. I.e. you need a rebalance timescale or an asset allocation threshold for when to rebalance. Otherwise in sudden market movements you are going to be stuck making a market timing decision. That is what happened to me multiple times with crypto when looking at 1000+% returns in very short timescales and having to decide whether to "rebalance" and scupper future returns, or risk a wipeout (both happened). Probably less likely to happen with gold, but it's still completely overvalued and could theoretically tumble (or explode) in price faster than your rebalancing schedule could deal with.

This would be an ideal use case for options contracts for hedging purposes.

[northSaver]

rebalance when necessary

This needs to be more concrete to be useful IMO. I.e. you need a rebalance timescale or an asset allocation threshold for when to rebalance. Otherwise in sudden market movements you are going to be stuck making a market timing decision. That is what happened to me multiple times with crypto when looking at 1000+% returns in very short timescales and having to decide whether to "rebalance" and scupper future returns, or risk a wipeout. Probably less likely to happen with gold, but it's still completely overvalued and could theoretically tumble (or explode) in price faster than your rebalancing schedule could deal with.

Yeah, good point. I'm probably a bit too relaxed about rebalancing. I usually don't bother if it's within 2-3% of my target allocation. Rebalancing costs money in my IB account (trade fees), and in iDeCo the trades take so long to go through they're likely to miss the juicy opportunities that present themselves (I learnt that the hard way!). And it's pointless to rebalance existing assets in NISA.

The "problem" I have at the moment is that we have three different portfolios running at once. A Permanent Portfolio in my IB account, a kind of All Weather portfolio in our iDeCo accounts, and a 100% Stock portfolio in our NISA accounts. So together they make a new Frankenstein portfolio and rebalancing them separately seems less important somehow! I'll spend the rest of this year deciding what to do about it in readiness for the move to New NISA in January