Experts are divided over role of gold

NEW YORK – A sickly dollar lifted gold to a fresh 16-year high this week, just as a newly launched exchange traded fund offered individual investors a new way to own the gleaming asset. But Wall Street experts, less than unanimous about its prospects, are divided about what sort of role gold should play in your portfolio.

Prized for their intrinsic value, precious metals like gold and silver are often used in investing as a way to offset rising inflation or currency losses, and are seen as a safe haven in times of market tumult. But while gold can be a useful diversification tool, over the very long term experts say it is not as good an investment as stocks or bonds, because it doesn’t throw off any sort of income, interest or dividends.

With the dollar on the skids and inflation accelerating, gold has gotten a great deal of attention lately and is approaching $450 an ounce. Gold has been trekking higher for the past three years, but the pace of its climb accelerated in the past few months. It hasn’t been a steady ascent, though. An ounce of gold dipped to $375 in May.

Investors pounced on a new ETF that tracks the commodity itself when it debuted Thursday. The streetTRACKS Gold Shares ETF, which trades under the ticker symbol GLD on the New York Stock Exchange, set a volume record on its first day.