Standard Life suspends trading in UK property fund

Diamonds; the industry is in some crisis because industrial diamonds are now so good.  Plus even the coloured diamond market ( a recent fashion blip) is affected because with vapour deposition it is possible to colour industrial diamonds.  NB recent large diamond auctions have failed.

Certainly not a safe place

You could look at other metals than gold

However the only real value is in the "sweat of man". 

Diamonds are surprisingly abundant for their price. For decades DeBeers maintained an artificial market by restricting the supply released to the market. This process is continues by the oligopoly (including governments) who control the market today, but arguably (especially given the unstableregimes involved) this will eventually be broken and values of all but the rarest plummet.

Now half of the UK retail property funds by value invested are blocking redemptions (direct link). Commercial property values were already high and that prompted redemptions to start earlier this year with 127 million of outflows in April then 360 million in May (direct link) as investors sought to exit from property funds near their highs.

The 8 point drop in the latest GfK consumer confidence survey result (direct link) isn't going to help either.