The 2020 Tokyo Olympics wrapped up with closing ceremonies on August 8, and it’s certainly been an Olympic games like no other for good and bad reasons. Team USA managed a last minute victory to vault ahead of China in the gold category and firmly held the lead in the overall medal count at 112. Some of you may have wondered – like us – what is a gold medal made of (can’t be 100% gold, can it???), and how much are they worth?

Solid gold

As it turns out, the inaugural 1896 Olympics saw the 1st place winners  awarded silver medals, with second-place finishers receiving bronze medals. The gold medal actually debuted at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, and they were indeed solid gold. This trend only continued until 1912.

Modern medals

Now, modern gold medals are made with around 550 grams of pure silver and coated with 6 grams of pure gold. This year’s medals are worth approximately $810 on the open market. Many countries also offer a financial award for each type of medal won, with Singapore providing the most significant payout at $1 million USD per gold medal. The United States awards gold medal athletes with $37,500 per gold medal.

Each Olympic games brings the hopes of the women and men who have trained for their lifetimes to get here. While the gold medal may not be worth as much monetarily, they are priceless to the athletes who win them.

Gold In Your Portfolio

As many of you know, Infinium added gold into our portfolios back when the COVID-19 crisis hit in the spring of 2020. At that time, the price of gold continued to climb into the summer and has cooled off since then. Longer term, gold would appear to us to still be a worthwhile investment for serveral reasons, including its hedge against inflation, a protection asset that investors tend to embrace when the stock market is floundering, and also a safe haven from a possible melt down in the US dollar.

Finally, gold is a proven diversifier in a portfolio historically. We still very much like the idea of having diversification in a portfolio even though that hasn’t been especially rewarded in recent years with all of the money printing our govenment has undertaken. As always, please reach out to us and schedule a call to discuss your particular situation and the appropriateness of having gold as a component to your overall invesment strategy.

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