Over the long term, gold is a poor investment, according to MLC Investment Management (MLC IM) investment strategist Michael Karagianis.

"Gold, of course, has gone from strength to strength and that is part of a 10-year cycle that we have seen gold continuing to appreciate," Karagianis said at the MLC IM Investment Summit 2011.

"People say: 'Is gold good value at this time?' Well, the issue with gold is that it is not necessarily a good long-term investment strategy.

"When gold stops rising, you don't make any money out of gold, there is no yield associated with gold.

"What it is, effectively, is an insurance policy. It is like insuring your house against a fire; you don't necessarily expect it to occur, but if the worst case does happen, this is where you want your money."

Gold has experienced a strong appreciation in recent months, as investors are concerned about the health of the global economy, particularly in the face of an increasingly likely Greek default.

The price has risen by 40 per cent in the past year to just under US$1800 an ounce, and mining executives have predicted this rise will continue.

But Karagianis said investing in gold only made sense for investors who expected a total collapse of the financial markets.

"If you don't believe the sun is going to rise tomorrow and you believe investment markets as we know them will come to an end, then gold is probably good value," he said.

"But if you look at the period towards the end of the 1970s, after the oil price shocks, you spent a lot of time either losing money on gold or not making any money whatsoever. It can actually go into long periods of stagnation. 

"It looks like a pretty expensive insurance policy at the moment."

A poll of the summit's audience found 41 per cent of participants expected to see the greatest growth in the near future come from shares.