Do you own physical gold as an investment?

Type_45

As a homeowner, an investor in passive funds, and an owner of a small amount of Bitcoin, I'm thinking of investing also in gold.

Bullion by post and store it myself, or bullion vault and have them store it.

Anyone else do this or can advise for or against?

Thrugelmir

There are ETF's that provide this diversification without all the hassle and expense of handling it yourself. 

pip895

Physical gold etfs are a lot more convenient.  The only "physical" gold I might consider would be sovereigns but I wouldn't consider them as part of my investment portfolio..

Type_45

If the GBP is suddenly worthless (or at least worth a lot less) presumably gold would come into its own.

Would gold ETFs benefit in the same way? Or is it wiser to have sovereigns?

Thrugelmir

Gold is traded in US $. Potentially even more worthless given the rate printing presses are running at.

AlanP_2

Best gold investment I ever made was in my wife's wedding ring, no need for any more.

Tell a lie, she paid for it herself so I have never invested in gold.

strawb_shortcake

My Husband holds some sovereigns, Britannia's (I think) and some other coins, he calls them an investment but I just see it as a collection as I don't think he'd sell, but I have the same opinion on his "investment" of Lego and comics too

pbartlett

if you decide to hold gold i would recommend holding the real thing eg krugerrands rather than as a piece of paper or as an arrangement of bits on a computer.

Eyeful

So on top of the cost of buying the gold you will need to get insurance as well. Are you going to buy a safe? Or is it going to be a few coins? Will your household insurance cover any loss? Remember buying by post, you are going to supply your name and address. How secure is your house? 

 If you store it in a bullion vault, that is another yearly cost. You will still need to buy insurance if the vault cost does not include it. In a time of crisis will the vault be open?

Just buy some shares in the Personal Assets Trust where their top holding is about 9% in Gold Bullion. You will then be get a yield of 1.24% (at present). Gold bullion by itself provides a yield of zero! 

eskbanker

Type_45 said:

an owner of a small amount of Bitcoin, I'm thinking of investing also in gold

[...]

Anyone else do this or can advise for or against?

Not sure if anyone's ever counted, but there must be as many gold threads on here as bitcoin ones, and they always end up with polarised factions locking horns increasingly combatively about the pros and cons until the threads are locked and the more vociferous proponents banned....

Thrugelmir

India it seems will be the first country to legally ban ownership of cryptocurrency. More to follow?