Investment Banking ------ An overview

Investment Banking refers to financial consultancy and their main revenue generation operates through cash market dealing with securities as well as primary market dealing with bonds. In fact, they provide legal advisory services for mergers and acquisitions. According to SEC (FINRA) regulations such an advisor (individual or a financial institution ) should be a licensed broker or an authorized dealer.

First world countries primarily the G7 nations having strong economic platform, banking sector had never delineated investment banking as a separate domain. Strategic financial advisor and services often include trading of derivatives (futures and options), equities and commodity market trading. Their financial planning services included mergers and acquisitions of institutional houses and thus acted as a perfect third-party consultant.

Their revenue generation has always been bilateral. Research, promotion, marketing dominated largely in securities and cash market trading. On the other hand, dealing with various funds, which categorically include pension funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, insurances of various categories by utilizing their retail database, which actually generated their revenue from their respective clients through the “buy side”.

The last two of the” bulge bracket” firms that existed on Wall Street were Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. However, on the 22^nd of September,2008 they responded to the U.S financial crisis by electing to convert into traditional banking institutions. There are banks that are “universal” rather than specifically being bulge market investment banks as they accept deposits. These are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS AG , JP Morgan Chase , Credit Suisse , HSBC and Barclays.

Should I invest in Dollar or Gold ..... ???

A competition of investment in gold versus dollars would obviously result in gold winning over without a shadow of a doubt.
A number of reasons actually shall take us through the analysis for gold winning over dollar. A change in the price of gold is actually the change in the valuation of dollar, not gold. The simpler way in which we can put it in is that an ounce of gold can still buy the same quality and quantity of services and goods as it were decades ago. However, the same amount of dollar cannot fetch the same as it did years back.
Thus, the question that arises upfront is whether to invest in "Dollars or Gold?"
An investment in dollar exposes the investor to the manipulated fluctuations in the market which causes abrupt changes. This is again a result of continuous printing of dollars (such occurs in most currencies , however, we considering only U.S here). This is done so as to fund debt like Federal Government debts and also those which are both private and public.
In contrast to dollar , gold carries a permanent consistency which does not alter in terms of purchasing power. The value of dollar relatively decreases with time, in the longer time frame. There was a time when $20 would have bought an ounce of gold which now would go up to $600 to $700.
This interestingly points to the direction where one should put his money. Gold is not dependent on currency. Thus, it can be simply handed over or received.