Just curious what people think of the Sprott Physical Gold Trust as a way of holding gold. It's backed by fully allocated bullion stored in Canada and periodically audieted by an independent third party. Fees are very low (less than one-half percent), buying and selling it is cheap with an online trading account like Options Xpress, and it's taxed at the long-term capital gains rate instead of the 28% rate for physical bullion.
Am I missing something? What's not to like?
Switters
This has been discussed a lot so try the search box. Check my very thorough research and post by others here.
I’m in PHYS myself and consider it the best of the lot. Just remember you don’t own gold. You own shares in a company that owns gold.
Travlin
Thank you Travlin. I did try the search box, but it didn't return any results for "Sprott" or "Phys". I think it wasn't working for some reason. I'll read the post you linked to.
I agree that the Sprott funds are the best of the ETF lot. Since my retirement account (Keogh) will not allow me to own physical, I have the funds split between PHYS, PSLV, GTU, & CEF. The last two are other Canadian funds that also operate on the same basis as Sprott - bullion only. I would also recommend them.
Switters
I've had poor results sometimes from the search function, but I got a lot of hits today for PHYS.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/search/apachesolr_search/PHYS
Travlin
These are best of breed forms of owning metals via a share (trust) structure in a brokerage account or IRA. One can argue as to whether it's better to have a physical Gold IRA with coins under the care of some vaulting custodian... but I choose Sprott, liking the fact that the metal is actually outside the US.
Note that at present, the premiums associated with these shares, i.e. the premiums above net asset values of the underlying metal, at spot, are at historical (for these funds) lows, especially in the case of the Silver trust, which is at 0.69% premium as I write. You would pay higher premiums to buy coins or bars yourself than you pay to own Gold in PHYS (0.15% as I write).
Thanks for the endorsement of those funds. I hold all of them as well, and I was going to pose a question in this forum about the perceived safety and value. I'm hoping they will prove resilient when the day of reckoning finally arrives.
or
to post comments
Access video tutorials and support for using Groups here
Join the discussion