Foreign Currencies Backed By Gold

Foreign Currencies Backed By Gold

The US Dollar was once backed entirely by gold, thus earning the term “greenback.” The Swiss Franc (CHF) was once 40% backed by both gold and silver, until 2006 when the country had to sell its gold and silver reserves to join the IMF. Today, not a single solitary currency on the face of the world is backed even 1% by gold or silver, as all nations have inflated their currencies to unprecedented levels in the past 50 years.
Commodities (Gold) and Currencies

Despite selling its large gold and silver reserves in 2006, the Swiss Franc (CHF) remains as an excellent bet on precious metals. Investors, seeing value in the anonymity and neutrality of Switzerland, typically buy the Swiss Franc as a safehaven investment during turbulent economic times. The USD/CHF pair typically performs to parity with the price of gold, with the dollar typically representing the “anti-gold” and the Swiss Franc a partial gold hedge.
Forex Brokers and Commodities

Since you can’t buy a currency backed by gold, the next best investment would be to buy gold either on the spot or futures markets. Many forex brokers such as Oanda.com and others allow investors to buy spot gold with leverage, enabling the ability to short virtually all currencies. Oanda in particular offers 30:1 leveraging on the spot price of gold, which is one of the best offers in the forex market. Others, such as InteractiveBrokers allow investors to buy and sell on the futures market, which is highly leveraged (100:1) but requires greater timing to profit.