so how exactly do you buy gold?

[AmandaRuth]

for the average Josephine, like myself. I mean, its not like I go to the bank and say "I'd like to trade in my money for gold, please, thanks." Do you?

[medeak]

1. you passed up the opportunity

gold is at highest level in decades...6 months ago would have been better..

you can always buy mining stock however.

[Mike L]

17. You can wait and see if there will be a 'pull back' in the price of gold,

or you can go ahead and buy now knowing that the price may drop some after you buy. Everything indicates that gold is in a long-term bull market. Gold may not top out for 5-6 years or longer.

[nevadascandal]

2. No dirty gold!

http://www.nodirtygold.org/home.cfm

[medeak]

oh brother

certainly the mining corps are whores in 3rd world countries...but in Nevada so regulated it's unbelievable.

please..no flames.. get them everytime this subject comes up.

[nevadascandal]

7. don't respond with "oh brother" if you want to keep the

discussion civilized.

And if the regulations are so good, why do BOTH the mining industry AND environmentalists in Nevada want to change them??

You know...those laws are over a hundred years old, too

[medeak]

10. have absolutely no problem

with renovating mining laws .. they do not pertain to regulations but to $$ for mining fed land.

Harry Reid has been wonderful to mining community. If you want to discuss further pm me.

[Chicago Democrat]

18. Oh really? My freind lives near a giant pond of cyanide...

in Nevada and there are dead animals right on the shore and its leaking into the water and he would go insane on you on this one...


Buying gold like Diamonds requires knowing the source of the gold to be ethical.

[medeak]

20. please tell me where?

$100,000 fine if any creature dies from cyanide...will report immediately!

cyanide ponds are fenced and covered...if any leakage and one critter dies..gopher or anything else it's $100,000 fine.

Your friend really needs to contact me! This is not permissable in anyway shape or form...

[Chicago Democrat]

21. I lost track of him... His grandma lived there and it was well known

and basically this huge scam on the local population by a big gold producer. I visited there and the nearest town were Grandma lived she ran the trailer park and there was a casino and basically in the desert. Anyway the site is there and it happened in the 80s or 90s and the company went broke and everyone I talked to hates them cause of this giant pond of cyanide. with the dead animals. the people that did it are long gone.

His grandma died and we were there when it happened. Its near where they did the Nuclear tests I cant remember but I think its near Mercury, his grandma and mom were nuked too.

[norml]

3. Buying gold ingots on Ebay would be one simple way.

The ingots are pure gold,while in the coins are less pure. The gold you buy can easily be sold on Ebay at market rates at a later time. You would need to become a member of Ebay. There is also buying stock in gold mining companies as another simple possibility. You would need to get an account with a brokerage for buying,and trading stock.

[Chicago Democrat]

5. Old coins are not pure gold, but nowadays every mint around the

world puts out bullion coins for the small investor.

[Chicago Democrat]

4. Easy, easy.... Just buy it. ... I used to do it often

Buy Maple Leaf, Panda's... the coins are best and easiest .9999 Oz. or whatever... but .9999 is better than .999. You want to keep it in the plastic containers!I took one out and ruined it and the dealer was mad at me when I sold it.

Look in the yellow pages.. Find the dealer in your area.. Make sure he has a Buy and Sell Price and NOTICE the difference, that is the Dealer's commmission. Make sure that the price is very close to the spot price.

Storing: VERY IMPORTANT! Get a safe deposit Box! DO NOT KEEP THEM IN THE HOUSE. you will be robbed, FOR SURE!! (i was, boohoo) Never play with them... Certainly DONT roll around the bed with 100 ouces of gold... that's really stupid...

[norml]

23. Rolling around in bed with 100 ounces of gold?

I guess that's one practical use for it. :eyes:

[rlev1223]

6. Actually, several ways.....

You can buy gold directly in the form of canadian or south african coins; you can also buy bullion from dealers but then you need to pay for storage and insrunce, not a good deal.

Most people "buy' gold by investing in gold mining stocks, not a pure play but they move generally in a similar direction. This can be done by buying shares in individual companies on the market or through an open-end mutual fund such as American Century Gold Fund (symbl BGEIX).
(There are others.)

Finally, there is about to be a new "Exchange Traded Fund" (ETF) which is a like mutual fund, but which trades as shares on the stock market. It will own directly gold bullion, so that owning shares in it will be a pure play on the price of gold. (and also a way to bet on the decline of the dollar.)

Any broker can tell you about this...I'm not sure it opened today but it will soon.

[Blue Wally]

14. It did

It is an I-shares type of fund and they do all of the buying, storing, guarding, and selling of the gold. It costs you 4/10's of 1% a year in fees.

[Mike L]

16. The ETF's ticker is GLD.N

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=6868859

It looks like we have some investors on DU (or, maybe just Gold Bugs?).

What about a new DU forum group for Democratic investors? (socially responsible, of course)

[DrWeird]

8. Do people actually get the gold?

Or do they get a piece of paper saying they have X amount of gold somewhere in a safety deposit box?

That would be kind of ironic.

[Starlight]

22. No, you can buy the real gold. n/t

[madmax]

9. Mr. mad has been thinking about buying gold.

He mentioned Krugerrands. Anyone know about these? His :tinfoilhat: is on really tight since I've been preaching doom and gloom.

Edit - I found this site:
http://www.onlygold.com/Coins/SouthAfricanKrugerrandsFullScreen.asp

[Starlight]

26. The price is high right now. You'd have been better off buying a

couple of years ago. Yeah, I know, that doesn't help you now. :P

[madmax]

28. We've been talking about this and the reason to buy gold

isn't really to 'make' money - it's more a safety net if we need to leave the country. I know, I know - my tinfoil hat is on soooo tight. But I don't trust this government one bit.

I have lost all faith in every agency, governing body - oh hell just everything. If the highest court in the land can act in the fashion that the USSC acted on December 12, 2000 it's going to take a miracle for me to ever trust this banana republic again - if ever.

[Starlight]

29. I'm not saying you should read anything into this..

but a Repub co-worker of mine has been collecting gold & silver bars ever since 9-11. He has a LOT of them now...

[bobo4u]

11. Prudent Bear Global Income Fund...

You don't actually have to buy real gold. Here's a mutual fund that provides protection against a falling dollar. Been going like gangbusters lately.

http://www.prudentbear.com/funds_pshfund.html

[laruemtt]

12. how about the euro?

DH has been a prof at the university for 14 years and we're taking off next year for st. lucia for a couple of years for him to go to med school. i think we ought to get his retirement out before we leave. any thoughts?

[Chicago Democrat]

19. I'm waiting until the big meeting is over this weekend

before buying more International equity funds. I'm even considering simply opening a bank account in Euros or Canadian Dollars.

[Nordic]

13. do NOT buy gold stocks!

I did and got burned. The stocks can go up and down for various reasons that have nothing to do with the price of gold.

In this regard they have the exact same risk as other stocks.

If you want to buy gold, buy actual gold, NOT stocks.

[Mike L]

15. Better to buy a gold mutual fund than gold stocks.

You spread the risk that way. If you want to buy one gold mining stock, AU (ticker) is probably the most stable company.

[knight_of_the_star]

24. I buy it from gold suppliers

I can get it from jewelry suppliers, but I currently lack the money to do so at the moment.

[jmowreader]

25. How much intestinal fortitude do you have?

If you have serious guts and can afford to lose your ass, consider futures contracts.

When you buy a futures contract, you are saying that on a specified date future you promise to purchase x amount of a commodity for y amount of dollars. Let's throw out two numbers: 1000 ounces of gold for $400 per ounce for January delivery.

The futures contract itself is salable; people sell futures contracts all of the time.

You are buying a futures contract because you are betting the price of gold will be more than $400 in January. The people who sold it to you are betting it will be less than $400. (And they're really gambling here--a lot of the time the seller doesn't own the gold himself.) Buying futures has limited risk and unlimited reward--all you can lose is $400 per ounce (this assumes they're giving it away) but selling them carries limited reward but unlimited risk--there is a possibility that gold could do what the spammers keep saying it will and hit $2500 per ounce, and when that contract comes due you still have to pony up a thousand ounces of gold for $400k.

If on date future, assuming you held the contract to maturity, the spot price of gold is $600, you're in high clover--you come in with your pickup and your armed guard, turn over your $400,000, receive your thousand ounces of gold and sell it to someone else at the spot price--the amount of money you must pay to receive your gold "on the spot."

OTOH, if you hold to maturity and the spot price is now $300, you still must pay $400,000 for that gold. Now you have a slight dilemma: no safe deposit box in the known world will hold 83 pounds of gold. (There are 12 troy ounces in a pound, not 16.) You will have to pay someone to safeguard all of this gold until you recover your $100,000 setback, or you'll have to take a $100,000 hit.

Options contracts are less of a gamble: on date future, you have the option of purchasing 1000 ounces of gold for $400 per ounce. If gold is enough higher than $400 to recover commissions and the options contract, go ahead and buy; if not, don't. There's still the risk/reward thing going on here, but it's far less on the buyer's side; you don't have to lose your ass if you don't want to.

Right now you're wondering why in hell anyone would do futures. They were invented for ag trading. A food manufacturer can buy futures for all their ingredients and be able to do accurate financial planning. To them, this is worth any risk involved in futures contracting. (Besides, if you planned around $4/bushel wheat and it went to $4.05, five million bushels would cost you an extra $250,000. How many people do you know who remain employed after missing a financial target by a quarter million dollars?) Gold futures make sense for someone like Jostens, Motorola or Intel, who use gold in their products.

Everyone else who wants to play the commodities-futures markets should do options. There's less risk that way.

[LunaC]

27. Check out ajpm.com

I've bought from them before and was very satisfied with their prices and service.