Gold - worth a punt?

LongTermLurker

#21 That's the registrant's PO Box, not the domain owner's - that's not necessarily the same thing. It's common for an ISP or hosting/support company to register their customers' domains, and often unusual for a small company (which these will be) to register and administer their own domain.

Saying that, what is a bit unusual is that the registrar (as opposed to registrant) is in Germany and the DNS servers are run by yet another company in the States - there is no consistency in the services being used and that would concern me somewhat.

However, elminvestments themselves trade from a PO box ( PO Box No 1120, Winterbourne, Bristol BS36 2DH) and it's this that's far more worrying.

cloud_dog

Just to add my 2 pennies worth (again, for regular gold bugs.........)

If you want to secure value in gold then go for physical gold or a reputable fund which holds physical gold; if you are happy to trade in/out of gold then the more normal ETF/C's are fine.

For me I use Central Fund of Canada and Central Gold Trust (same family), the first 50/50 between gold and silver and the second 100% gold (physical).

Plusses and minuses of the funds........ Can be held in an ISA (yipee), but can trade at a premium to the NAV. I am use to invest in IT's so am comfortable with NAV premium / discount.

See:

* http://www.centralfund.com/
* http://www.gold-trust.com/

cloud_dog

hedger

another question - if I go with Bullionvault should I buy in GBP, US$ or EURO? I would guess US$ as I see this strengthening against the pound.

martinman3

LongTermLurker wrote: »

However, elminvestments themselves trade from a PO box ( PO Box No 1120, Winterbourne, Bristol BS36 2DH) and it's this that's far more worrying.

A lot of coin dealers will use a P.O. Box so that the location of their stock is not known for security reasons.

Using the Companies House website to search for Elm Investments (Western) Ltd gives a company no. of 01293689
and the registered address

PORTWALL PLACE 4TH FLOOR
PORTWALL LANE
BRISTOL
BS1 6NA

Companies House also tells us that the company has been in existence since 11/01/1977


Personally, I would use Chard Coins http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/ or
Baird & Co. http://www.goldline.co.uk/

alchemistkevin

All good for physical info but does anyone have pointers on which providers (brokers?) to use for ETF's? I'm interested as a short term gamble and don't want to block money in the long term in form of physical gold.

turbobob

Selftrade seem fairly competitive as brokers. £12.50 a trade IIRC. As far as I've seen the basic choice seems to be ETF Securities Gold and Physical Gold funds, and Lyxor's Bullion fund.

Quote from Morningstar:

Compared with an open-end fund or unit trust, ETFs usually have much lower TERs. They also offer a much more pure, direct play on gold. There are three ETFs--exchange-traded notes, to be precise--listed on the London Stock Exchange. Two: Lyxor Gold Bullion Securities and ETFS Physical Gold, invest directly in gold bullion and thus track the spot-price less fees. The former charge 0.40% per year, and the latter 0.39% (Merril Lynch Gold & General charges nearly five times as much as 1.92% per year). The third, ETFS Gold, invests in contracts that track the gold sub-index of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodities index. It costs slightly more, at 0.49% per year, and its investor are exposed to a degree of credit-risk given that the contracts are dependent to the credit-worthiness of the counterparties--in this case, Shell and AIG. In addition to the above advantages, ETFs are easy to buy and sell and like any traded share, are priced throughout the day. Funds and unit trusts, on the other hand, are usually priced just once per day, and cannot offer the same degree of liquidity as ETFs.

turbobob

On the other hand, is anyone thinking about having a punt on shorting gold??

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b3f0dfa-80e9-11dd-82dd-000077b07658.html

Profit from the plunging pound

3. Short-sell gold.
Gold tends to have an inverse correlation to the dollar as it is denominated in dollars and seen as a safe haven, says Symon Hawken, chief executive at Collins Stewart Wealth Management.
This means that when the dollar is strong, historically gold is likely to do less well. Shorting a gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) may therefore prove profitable.

calisto

turbobob wrote: »

On the other hand, is anyone thinking about having a punt on shorting gold??

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b3f0dfa-80e9-11dd-82dd-000077b07658.html

Frickin excellent! I can't think of any currency that is as strong as the toilet paper dollar!! Yaaayyyaaazzz!!

:beer:

pumpndump

If you think that there is going to be hyperinflation, then gold is just the kind of thing. It is better to use gold as a means of preserving your wealth rather than as spending money. For spending money, buy as many cigarettes as you can. Tights/stockings are also good currency.

samclam

I've gone for an ETF backed by Physical Silver PHSP (same as PHAG but in £s) as Silver is massively undervalued and unlike Gold there is an industrial need for it. Trading with HoodlessBrennan.com only costs £8 / trade. ETF Securities Physical Gold is PHGP & PHAU.