Which gold or silver? And why?

Since this is just my stupid opinion...

There are many ways investing in gold and silver, all precious metals, actually. Things have never been easier to buy gold/silver in all forms - physical, paper or electronic. They often carry very little premium - dealers typically sell them with percentage above current gold/silver market price. 1-3% should be what you aim for.

Most time, when you buy and sell physical gold/silver (bar, bullion etc), payment is done through credit card, wire transfer, check or money order. In today's world, easier than buying a pair shoes from Walmart.

1. Physical bar
2. Physical bullion coin
3. Holding account
4. Pool account
5. ETF
6. Precious metal stock
7. Certificate

I'll ONLY explain the technical pros and cons as I see it, but let you make the decision on what to do. Read the 10 Commendment of Buying Gold and Silver if you haven't.

Place to sell

The companies and websites I list below all buy precious metals. You can sell your holding (physical or electronic gold/silver) back to these dealers with ease. Should you wish, you could just sell to some local gold dealer. Try not to sell them to pawn shops though.

Sales Tax
Many states California, Texas, PA, and many other states do not charge sales tax on bullions trade over $1000

Check with your state law.

Physical bars
These things go from 1 oz to 100 oz. In gold term, 100 oz means a lot of money, $100,000; in silver, it's about $2000 market rate.

The problem i can see is that they are not very liquid, especially not dividable. In time you need the money, it can be difficult to sell as who would pay $100,000 at a time? Probably, not even $2000.

They are good in terms of being recognized by international banks. In America, you would have no problem selling them as long as they are made by reputable mints such as Johnson & Matthey, A-mark, Wall Street Mint or Englehardt, even Sunshine.


The Tulving Company
Kitco
BullionDirect

Physical bullion coin

These are typically 1 oz gold or silver coins. They do have smaller oz in gold.

Popular brands are:

Gold: Krugerrand, American Eagle, Mexico 50 Peso, Canadian Maple (24K), China Panda (24K)
Silver: American Eagle (SAE), Canadian Maple, Sunshine Eagle

Bullion coin is the awesome way to invest. Not only they are internationally recognizable, but they are really easy to store, transport and sell (dividable).

If you are in for investment, stick to the popular brands. Do not ever buy any no name or memorial coin. I am not even into the Sunshine Eagle or China Panda.


The Tulving Company
Kitco
BullionDirect

Many also recommend US 90% Junk Silver bag sold at $1000 face value/bag. These are US dollar coins minted before 1965 in the denomination of 10c, 25c, 50c, and 1 dollar. All of them contain 90% of silver. This is highly recommended in 10 Commendment of Buying Gold and Silver

My reasoning behind this is:
a. it's a lot of coins to sort through (more than 1000 per bag)
b. it's a lot of weight to store (each bag weighs more than 50 lbs)
c. it takes a lot of room
d. less chance to sell, majority of the people know what Silver American Eagle is, but junk coins?



Holding Account

The most popular holding account is www.goldmoney.com. BullionDirect also allow you to hold the metal till you tell them to deliver.

If you like electronic gold/silver, Goldmoney is probably the best way to go; they are very popular and very international. . Another choice is Kitco's pool account explained below.

Goldmoney sells you allocation of their gold storage and charge you a monthly fee. From what they tell us, it seems they actually have the gold.

Their monthly fee is kind of OK, but their prices of metals are kind of high. What you can do is buy gold through Kitco, who is a reseller of Goldmoney. You will get a break that way.

Pool Account

Pool account is something offered by Kitco, a Canadian based company. It's interesting concept that you can put your money and buy precious metal in a pool. Whenever you want to get delivery, either metal or paper, you just sell all your holding to Kitco and ask them to mail you a check or a bunch of gold.

ETF

ETF (exchange-traded fund) is actually a kind of stock. There are currently two ETFs available, Gold (GLD) and Silver (SLV).

You can open a stock trading account with TDameritrade or Etrade etc. to buy and sell these ETFs

There are a lot of benefits buying these ETFs, especially you are a day trader. You can set up all kinds of fancy stock trading methods to trade them as much as you like.

Precious Stock

I am not familiar with any gold stocks, nor do I want to pour more money into stock market.

Still unsure what to do? Remember what we said in other posts?

1. Go international
2. Diversify
3. Educate yourself
4. Be prepared

Used the same principle in investing in precious metals.

Please note I use the word "precious metals," plural. Don't limit yourself just in gold and silver. Try Platinum and Palladium too.

Read the 10 Commendment of Buying Gold and Silver if you haven't. Read all articles on that website too.