Gold Bullion - Anyone investing in this ?

cootuk

Remember years ago when the US government only allowed individuals to have so much personal gold and bought the excess back at a low rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

shaun_from_Africa

Unless you have investments that are likely to take you above the £10,600 CGT threshold, I wouldn't worry too much about whether you should buy bullion bars, foreign coins or UK legal tender coins.

If you are buying in the hope that you make a profit from the price of gold rising then all that should really be of any concern is making sure that you get your gold for the lowest possible price.

It's not really worth considering anything less than a 1oz bar/coin as the sellers premium that you will pay for these means that the price of gold will have to rise more before you start seeing any potential profit.
At the current price, you can buy a 1oz bar (31g) for about £1064 (which is 2% over the spot price) but a 10g bar will cost you about £350 which works out at about 4.4% over spot. (I've used Coininvestdirect for price comparisons as they tend to be one of the cheapest sellers).

It might not sound like a big difference, but it means that gold will have to rise by an extra 2.4% before you would have any chance of making a profit.

grey_gym_sock

cootuk wrote: »

Remember years ago when the US government only allowed individuals to have so much personal gold and bought the excess back at a low rate.

yes, that's a risk, but i don't see why it'd be more likely for legal tender gold than any other gold.

and it doesn't only apply to gold. if you buy shares, a government might nationalize the company at a low price.

these kind of risks, unless you're of the opinion that they're imminent, are mostly an argument for diversification.

bugbyte_2

The two low priced sellers I have used in the past include:

http://www.atkinsonsthejewellers.com/gold-coins esp. good at the moment for 1/2 soverigns

and

http://www.hattongardenmetals.com/buy-gold.aspx