Merrill Lynch Gold & General Fund?

shays_mum

Pl can anyone advise:
Am looking for an ISA in precious metals, is this the only viable choice i have?. I was looking for one with more exposure to silver, is there any other alternatives i could look at?
Thanks in advance

cheerfulcat

Hi, shays_mum,

For pure silver exposure, you could look out for the launch of a silver ETF, planned shortly, by Barclays. There is already a tracker on the way, according to the FT, but I am not familiar with the issuers ( ETF Securities ) and would personally prefer to wait for the Barclays version.

HTH

Cheerfulcat

cloud_dog

cheerfulcat wrote:

Hi, shays_mum,

For pure silver exposure, you could look out for the launch of a silver ETF, planned shortly, by Barclays. There is already a tracker on the way, according to the FT, but I am not familiar with the issuers ( ETF Securities ) and would personally prefer to wait for the Barclays version.

HTH

Cheerfulcat

Cheerful, fyi I have contacted BGI and there are no plans to offer their existing Gold ETF or Silver ETF (should it get SEC approval) in the UK, apparently there is not a huge demand for these types of investments from Uk investors - I informed them that I thought they were wrong. Interesting that this/these new silver ETF's have glided under the radar somewhat.

cloud_dog

cheerfulcat

Hi, cloud_dog,

You are quite right; I should have mentioned that one would need a broker who allows trading in US listed stocks to deal in the Barclays silver ETF. I agree with you that they are wrong in their assessment of demand for the ETF; I wonder whether it is a regulatory matter?

BTW, have you ever heard of ETF Securities? It's an interesting product they offer but I'm rather wary...

Cheerfulcat

cloud_dog

cheerfulcat wrote:

Hi, cloud_dog,

You are quite right; I should have mentioned that one would need a broker who allows trading in US listed stocks to deal in the Barclays silver ETF. I agree with you that they are wrong in their assessment of demand for the ETF; I wonder whether it is a regulatory matter?

BTW, have you ever heard of ETF Securities? It's an interesting product they offer but I'm rather wary...

Cheerfulcat

Cheeful, I hadn't heard of ETF Security, or their silver ETF (hense my radar comment). From doing quick research last night I think they may be South African based but need to confirm / do more research. Am not inclined to go with them.

Fyi, I found a good article a short while ago regarding the BGI Silver ETF and the possible conflicts of interest in ETF's, i.e. brokers, custodian, etc,etc. It was a very balanced report, and basically identified how commodity ETF's are traded, using the gold ETF's as an example. I'll do some digging to see if I can find the link.

Edit: see link http://www.safehaven.com/showarticle.cfm?id=4666

One other question, a while ago when I was doing gold/ silver fund / ETF research I came across a Canadian fund that was invested (actually held the goods) and had a percentage split between gold and silver (there may have been some other metals in the fund but not its main constituents). I did mention it on a previous thread but now cannot track down the fund. Any ideas???

Thanks cloud_dog

p.s. meant to say, 'wow' early riser.

cheerfulcat

Thanks for the link, cloud_dog, some very interesting stuff there.

One other question, a while ago when I was doing gold/ silver fund / ETF research I came across a Canadian fund that was invested (actually held the goods) and had a percentage split between gold and silver (there may have been some other metals in the fund but not its main constituents). I did mention it on a previous thread but now cannot track down the fund. Any ideas???

Was it the Central Fund of Canada? Seems to be at a premium to NAV but presumably still useful as a tracker.

BTW Fool has a very useful gold and PMs board.

Regards

Cheerfulcat

( yes, very early riser :-) )

cloud_dog

cheerfulcat wrote:

Was it the Central Fund of Canada? Seems to be at a premium to NAV but presumably still useful as a tracker.

It certainly was, thanks - star lady (i think?). Yes with the premium its not that great an investment, and is considered possibly worse than that because people (professionals) think the premium relates to the silver holding, i.e. 0% premium for the gold holding, and therefore you can reasonably double your risk exposure if silver doesn't continue its price increase.

I'm looking at this fund as my fall back position should the economy / markets go negative, the additional plus (again according to some professionals) is that as it is C$ it will doubly benefit should the worst come to the worst, i.e. US$ weakens.

Apologies to the OP for hijacking their thread and taking this off topic.

cloud_dog