Worth a Punt on Gold?

I've got my wedding ring from my first marriage somewhere. That's gold. I'm open to offers.

Bullion by post.

Buy UK legal tender, sovereigns are the safest. No CGT and no VAT on purchase or sale. Effectively you’re just exchanging denominations of currency.

Kruggerands, etc. are subject to CGT and VAT.

Selling gold directly to one of the scrap bullion dealers such as Cooksons cuts out the middle man and gets a better price. You get slightly more if you are a registered customer. They will take sovereigns, I sold one to them for my nephew for a much better price than he was offered on the high street.

I have no experience of dealing in gold as an investor though.

BUY $TRUMP

$TRUMP has just appeared on eToro. It's gone from $72 to $40 in two and a half hours!

I bought some Dig gold through Royal Mint a couple of months ago, made just under 8% increase in that time. Certainly worth a shot as at least it’s commodity. The plan with mine is just to let it sit there for as long as possible.

I've got a copy on cassette somewhere

Find a gold price index fund (they exist, Google it) and invest in one of them

So, I’m looking at the high FTSE and insanely high other markets and thinking this looks dodgy.

It sure does whiff doesn't it? I have my entire pension in international equity tracker, aka the US stock market. Two consecutive years of near 25% growth and in no small part based on things that I believe are being hugely over hyped. Having worked in IT and banking for a quarter of a century I'm getting a serious sense of deja vu. All I'm hearing on AI/machine learning is 'look at our slightly better chatbot'. It is the classic bubble group think of 'this time is different' that is most concerning.

Interest rates are still decent, was half considered parking it in a cash fund for a year or so.

I know, I know - don't try and time the market, but it is very tempting to try in this case.

Go on JustETF.com and find a gold or other precious metals tracker.  Coffee and cocoa were the commodities to be in last year.  Not sure about pork bellies and FCOJ.

this looks dodgy. The Tangerine Blimp is about to take power again with far more control than first time around. Bank shares just keep rising and I’m getting spooked.

Does it mean sell everything to cash?

ETPs .... Exchange Traded Products..... Which in effect securitise commodities, tracking the price of your chosen commodity (less fees, which are minimal)

Look up the "stock" codes or epics .... PHAU or GBS..... The London Stock exchanges two main/most popular Gold ETFs.

They will be available via AJBell and can be held in an ISAs

Remember that in buying gold you are infect also long of USD, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

(Or give 3GCX a go....  3x leveraged long gold !! )

Funny how as much as people are joking about Thumpcoin, or what ever it called, Gold really isn't much different.... Its another "perceived" store of wealth just a couple of 1000 years old !?!

Gold has worth the very thing I'm typing on would not work to well without it.

Gold has worth the very thing I’m typing on would not work to well without it.

It's a yes, but...... though.

Industrial uses only account for something like 20% of production.  Enough that it probably impacts the value, not enough that it would prop it up if everyone else decided they didn't need it for the sake of it.

But it's so shiny

I think by the time you're openly asking if you should it's probably too as those on the know have already done so.

Bullion is handy if you don't plan on selling and want to use it to avoid some inheritance tax. Otherwise, as you identify, the spread on buying/selling makes it extremely inefficient as an investment.

Disregarding the IHT angle, I'd get an ETC. I have some iShares Physical Gold.

If you've not maxed out your stocks and shares ISA allowance, buy it in that envelope to avoid capital gains tax on selling. If you are going to max out your stocks and shares ISA anyway, then use that for dividend-bearing investments (which an ETC is not) and just buy the ETC in a dealing account.

I have a small amount of digi gold 0.157oz  (and an even smaller amount physical gold as it's shiny) via the royal mint. It sat for a while doing nothing then jumped a lot. Typically I've since bought some more but not much. Overall I'm up 20% .

I'm very much at the small ad hoc doing it out of curiosity to scratch an itch end of the market.

The small physical coin I have is really shiny but very underwhelming in size.

Gold. Allotments. Shotguns.

If you've got all three you'll probably survive till 2026.

Depends on how a tech bubble collapsing impacts the rest of the market?  Dot-com bubble everything went silly, didn't the Nasdaq gain 400% in 5 years? Then lost it all.

The S+P is more diversified (but still 30% tech). And of that 30%; Intel isn't doing well, AMD has fallen 80% since March, that doesn't scream bubble.

Someone should do an S+P495 ETF without Google, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia!

I think by the time you’re openly asking if you should it’s probably too as those on the know have already done so.

Over the last decade Gold's gone up ~160%, the S+P went up ~200%, so either:

a) it's looking similarly shaky

b) it's already in high demand and a crash elsewhere will push it through the roof.

During the dot com crash valuations were based on future profits. This time around the tech giants are making obscene profits so their valuation is in line with many other non-tech companies in the S&P. But if you want better exposure to the un-magnificent 493 buy a balanced S&P tracker which puts 0.2% in each company.

Gold was up 27.8% last year which is amazing but it has been a bit flat for the last month or so - not sure if it's reached a top, but as already said, the stock markets are also very high. Difficult time to guess what's going to happen, especially with Trump arriving today!

Last couple of years physical gold trackers have done about as well as global / US trackers. I think it’s worthwhile to diversify so do have a gold tracker in my ISA and SIPP.
Perhaps less likely to crash than the markets since it’s a limited commodity but who knows…

glad i'm not the only one a bit nervous with banks, barclays and hsbc at 5 year highs, i'm up considerably on both (bought in during covid lows), along with lloyds.

so can afford a fall back, but i really need to diversify, that fat burning pill could be a good one, but the euro is weak..

oil (bp/shell) seems to be heading back up, after falling back since the summer. the john wood group mentioned a few months back is doing well too.

you can buy gold silver palladium (digital) on the revolut app, spread seemed ok, likely subject to CG , so best DYOR and prepare for the negatives for revolut ;0)

yes, buy it now it is at a high and above fair value, what could go wrong ?

the john wood group mentioned a few months back is doing well too.

That's because they made the sensible decision to keep me out of their business. ?

I’m guessing that if you take a Krugerrand into your average high street jeweller they’ll pay you a pittance for it.

Isn't the point of Krugerrands to be swapping them for liquid cocaine with Colombian narcolords?

Most 1oz gold coins of 999 are bought by bullion by post for £2115 just now

Interesting thread, what id really like to know is where to sell some gold

I've got a couple of golf sovereigns that were family heirlooms, they are of zero interest to me so selling them would pay some bills.

But where do you go to cash in?

Starter for 10

https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/sell-to-us/sell-gold-coins/

Sell them privately and split the spread?

So Simon says yo get an ETF

Rosey says to get ETP

And wosname says to get  an ETC.

Now I'm confused

< Edit. xETFs= ETP>

ETf vs ETC doesn't really matter (and they are both ETPs) - search for gold on your investment platform of choice and pick a product you like the ticker of or has the best fees.

If you really care, the first Google hit on ETC vs ETF uses real-world examples of gold investment products: ETC vs. ETF: What's the Difference?

Interesting, I looked up the approximate trade value for a sovereign at Cooksons and it’s about £40 more than for bullionbypost, but the non-trade value is pretty much identical between the two. So compared to taking one into a high street shop bullionbypost is likely to be much better.

Equal weighted ETF's to remove some of the valuation risk? Apparently they are seeing big cash inflows right now.

I also looked into revenue-weighted trackers, as that seems like it should be the best of both worlds, but they don't seem to exist in great numbers and I'm thinking there must be a reason for that.

Personally I'll make no changes and just ride the course, but then I hopefully have some relatively good earning years ahead of me, so some price falls in the short term are not necessarily a bad thing for me long term.

I sold a Krugerrand several years ago. Went to a coin/jewellery place. Looked up the prices online and phoned a few places up. Found somewhere that was offering an amount near enough as made no difference.  The difference between shops was quite remarkable though. Some were nearly a hundred pounds less than others.

Well, currently 2.2% up after 5 days.... What could possibly go wrong?

I’m not up 12.7% since October. 

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/07/business/gold-bank-of-england-trump-tariffs-intl/index.html

Apparently a lot of people moving their gold to the US just now.

Does anyone have an opinion of buying some gold in the near future? I understand that it is at its highest ever price and some say it will keep going up (crystal ball time)..

I recently came into a bit of money - a couple of thousand, and I would like to invest it in something. I don't know anything about stocks & shares and am concerned about trump etc.

Bank interest is pitiful, so am looking at an alternative (probably for 10 years - don't intend to cash it out in the near future)

Is gold a fairly safe bet if the US economy tanks? 

A friend suggested putting it into cryptocurrency, but that seems like a big gamble on something I really don't understand - at least gold is shiny 🤣 .

Am I right in thinking that if (for example) I bought a gold Britannia from bullionbypost, there is no capital gains to pay in the future?

There are different coins available from different years - is the end value going to be the same, regardless of the 'year' on the coin?

Thanks?

It's a perfectly reasonable thing to take a punt on if you have some money going spare but personally I'd take the opportunity to start up a stocks and shares ISA. You don't need to know very much and once you have one started you can drip feed a bit more money in as you have it.

From what I've gathered, unless it's a rare coin, you pay the gold price. 

Why not opt for digi gold. You don't get the shiny lump of a depressingly small coin for the cost, but you can buy other quantities of gold and drip cash into it 

It took a little dip over the last couple of weeks, tangerine effect, but it’s creeping back up. Just buy digi gold and only spend what you can afford, keep it there as long as you like to make some cash. 

Posted by: jimmy

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this looks dodgy. The Tangerine Blimp is about to take power again with far more control than first time around. Bank shares just keep rising and I’m getting spooked.

Does it mean sell everything to cash?

Was the right call.

Nah

Buckle up for the long term in mainly low cost index trackers and enjoy riding the waves 

So, I'm looking at the high FTSE and insanely high other markets and thinking this looks dodgy. The Tangerine Blimp is about to take power again with far more control than first time around. Bank shares just keep rising and I'm getting spooked.

want to diversify. Can't afford to be buying any property, but thinking that putting a tad in gold seems a good idea

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Cool. 7.53% up over two months is ok. And about 20% higher than the rest of my  investments.