Going for gold, well gold funds actually!

But there is one sector where the golden warning has not proved appropriate at all this year, a sector where its investors are reaping gilt edged rewards, and that sector is Gold funds.

The offshore Gold and Precious Metals sector as measured by Standard & Poor's only contains 10 funds, of which one is denominated in sterling, one in euros and one in Swiss francs. The remaining seven are all US dollar funds.

Measured in US dollar terms the average performance so far this year has been 67.63% (September 19th). The best performer, the only euro denominated fund, and helped to a certain degree by the rise in the strength of the euro, is the PEH Q Goldmines fund, a European SICAV fund based in Germany. It has seen a year to date return of 90.37%.

Among the more accessible funds which have also seen remarkable performance are the Merrill Lynch International Gold and General Fund, with 86.03% so far this year, and the Investec Global Gold Fund showing 55% over the same period.

As would be expected from funds which have shown such meteoric rises they display high volatility ratios. The sector average volatility percentage is 9.47% and maximum losses in a single year have been as much as 50%.

It may be too late to catch any further rises. But as a hedge against further international unrest, for which gold is traditionally an integral part of portfolios, there may be some way for this long ignored sector to go.