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Gold (GC=F) June futures opened at $4,538.90 per troy ounce on Tuesday, 0.4% lower than Monday’s closing price of $4,557.50. The gold price rose in early trading.

The gold price continues to react to headlines about the Iran war. The yellow metal showed some strength on Tuesday after President Trump reportedly expressed willingness to exit the war before the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. Comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell may have also calmed traders’ nerves. Powell said Monday that interest rates are positioned well enough that the Fed could take a “wait and see” approach to the recent oil price spike.

Stable interest rates are better for the gold price than rising ones. Higher rates increase gold’s holding costs and tend to result in weaker gold prices.

Learn more: Who decides what gold is worth? How gold prices are determined.

The opening price of gold futures on Tuesday was 0.4% lower than Monday’s close. Here’s a look at how the opening gold price has changed versus last week, month, and year:

One week ago: +4.6%

One month ago: -14.3%

One year ago: +46.8%

The precious metal’s one-year gain was 95.6% on Jan. 29.

24/7 gold price tracking: Don't forget you can monitor the current price of gold on Yahoo Finance 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Want to learn more about the current top-performing companies in the gold industry? Explore a list of the top-performing companies in the gold industry using the Yahoo Finance Screener. You can create your own screeners with over 150 different screening criteria.

Gold has the same high-level risk as any investment: You could lose money. And, as with other investments, a loss on gold can materialize in different ways. Understanding the potential outcomes is the first step to managing your risk when investing in gold.

According to gold experts, would-be gold investors should understand these four risks:

Price

Speculation

Opportunity cost

Fraud

Today, we’ll focus on the first two: price and speculation.

Learn more: How to invest in gold in 4 steps

There is a price risk for investors who buy gold when the metal is nearing record high prices. “Buying high to hope for short-term higher is a tough strategy,” said Darrell Fletcher, managing director, commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets.

Despite the high prices, there are positive dynamics in play for the precious metal. Fletcher pointed out that gold is recovering from decades of low prices, and it’s an increasingly popular diversification asset for central banks and individual investors.

The right expectations, a long timeline, and an appropriate allocation can limit your pricing risk. “Gold should not be seen as a driver of supercharged returns — it’s there to act primarily as a stabilizer in a diversified portfolio,” explained Alex Tsepaev, chief strategy officer of B2PRIME Group.

If you are interested in learning more about gold’s historical value, Yahoo Finance has been tracking the historical price of gold since 2000.

Thomas Winmill, portfolio manager at Midas Funds, encourages investors to view positions in gold bullion, coins, and ETFs as speculative. Gold is a commodity, and “commodity prices are dependent on macroeconomic, political, industrial, and financial factors that are unpredictable, and in some cases, unknowable.”

Despite its recent performance, gold is an unpredictable asset. Keeping that in mind when making trading decisions could protect you from over-exposure and unrealistic expectations.

Learn more: Thinking of buying gold? Here's what investors should watch for.

Whether you’re tracking the price of gold since last month or last year, the price-of-gold chart below shows the precious metal’s steady upward climb in value.

Learn more: Gold alternatives? How to invest in silver, platinum, and palladium.

Tim Manni edited this article.

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