Gold is a new investment and wealth management product in recent years. Gold has the characteristics of maintaining and increasing value, and with the deepening of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, the price of gold is getting higher and higher. More and more people find that investing in gold can effectively avoid it. Gold is a precious metal and one of the earliest metals discovered, developed and utilized by human beings. It is not only an important raw material for making jewelry and coins, but also an important reserve material for the country, and is known as the "king of metals". It is not only regarded as a symbol of beauty and wealth, but also benefits human life with its unique value. With the development of science and technology and modern industry, gold plays an increasingly important role in aerospace, medicine, electronics and other industrial fields. The use of gold is more and more extensive, and the consumption is also increasing, which has attracted special attention and strong interest from all countries in the world. The atomic number of gold in the periodic table of chemical elements is 79, and the atomic weight is 197. Gold is heavy, but lighter than platinum. The density of gold is 19.32g/cm3, which means the weight of a golden ball with a diameter of only 46mm 1kg. Pure gold is golden yellow, but it is rare in nature. The color of gold changes with the content of impurities: silver and platinum can lighten the color of gold; Copper will darken the color of gold. Colloidal gold shows different colors according to its dispersion degree and micro-adhesion structure. Gold has good ductility. One or two pure gold can be hammered into gold leaves with a thickness of one tenth of a millimeter and an area of nine square meters. Gold leaves are transparent. When sunlight passes through them, they can be green. 50g of pure gold can spin 8km, which is thinner than hair (∮ 1.6, 7 human hairs). The volatility of gold is small, and the melting volatility can be ignored in general. The evaporation loss of gold in gas is 6 times that in air, and the loss of gold in carbon monoxide is 2 times that in air. The volatilization rate of gold is closely related to its impurity content. Gold has good electrical and thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of gold is second only to silver and copper, ranking third among metals, and the thermal conductivity is 74% of that of silver. The chemical properties of gold are very stable. Gold will not be directly oxidized by oxygen at low temperature or high temperature. At room temperature, gold and single inorganic acids (such as hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and sulfuric acid) have no effect, but mixed acids, such as aqua regia (three parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid) and cyanide solution can dissolve gold well. The melting point of gold is 1063℃. If gold is heated to near the melting point, it can be melted like iron, fine gold particles can be melted into blocks, and gold powder can only be fused together by pressing at low temperature. Gold can be alloyed with other metals, such as gold-silver alloy, gold-copper alloy and gold-silver-copper alloy. In addition, there are so-called gold amalgam. Gold often exists in the state of natural gold. Natural gold containing silver and copper impurities is essentially different from the alloys of these metals. Alloy is the product of metal melting and solidification, so it has a homogeneous structure, while natural gold is precipitated from aqueous solution. Natural gold is sometimes covered with a thin film of iron oxide. In this case, the color of gold may be brown, dark brown or even yellow. This kind of gold generally has a coating, which is not only an oxide of iron, but sometimes it may be some fine gangue attached to the surface of gold particles. This inclusion not only affects the identification of gold, but also brings difficulties to mineral processing (mixed mercury or cyanidation). As a metal, gold itself has no value, but people have estimated its value. As a special currency, gold has been circulating unimpeded all over the world for many years, so people recognize that gold is the original value commodity of money. It has experienced several wars and financial storms, and its value has been stable, so gold is regarded as a substance to avoid risks. In the four major financial storms in the United States, gold has depreciated twice, appreciated once and remained basically unchanged once. The fluctuation range of both appreciation and depreciation is much smaller than that of other commodities, so people pay more and more attention to the ability of gold to maintain its value. With the inflation in China and Vietnam in the past two years, the demand for gold in India is increasing. Just like ordinary commodities, when the growth rate of demand exceeds the production rate, the price of commodities will also rise, and everything follows the market rules. The price of gold will also rise in recent years. The book Currency War shows more clearly that there are two reasons why the price of gold has risen. First, people's consumption of gold has increased, such as gold ornaments and gold collections. Second, in the period of economic instability, people usually talk about exchanging money and goods for gold to preserve value. The largest gold reserve center in the world is located in Manhattan, new york, USA, where the gold reserves of many countries are concentrated. The change of gold price in Manhattan directly affects the whole world, but the gold there is different from that sold in shops and banks. The difference is that the gold there is currency and futures, while the gold sold by shops and banks is commodities and spot. Although the spot market and futures market are two completely different markets, they are also interrelated and influenced each other. The original form of the origin of money is shells, and large and small shells act as money, because shells have several characteristics from the beginning, one is recognized by the public, the other is convenient for circulation, the third is convenient for transportation, the fourth is convenient for storage, and the fifth is stable in value. So gold is actually the same as the original shell. So it depends on whether it will increase in value or decrease in value in the future. First of all, you have to look at the progress of its production. Second, you should ask people whether the value orientation of gold will change. Third, whether the demand for gold will increase or decrease in the next few years. Fourth, pay more attention to the current or future global economic changes. Therefore, it is not so easy to simply judge whether gold is appreciating or depreciating. However, according to past experience, the gold bull market generally lasts more than 10 years, and this year is only the sixth year of the gold bull market. Although the price of gold has dropped some time ago, I estimate that it will still rise in the next three to four years, and there may be a lot of room for growth.