haha, the way you described was funny

I like to think of ETF etc as 'products of imagination'

I reckon for every 1 gm of gold bought they tell >1000 customers here is your nugget....who verifies eh?

ps: I read an article recently on this topic (cant figure out where) and there is a huge worry about gold ETF collapsing (but someone may discard this as unwarranted so respect that equally)

pps: by the way is that your door stopper? LOL

Nothing bears no risk at all. Have you personally read their entire prospectus? I'd be interested if the following is true:
http://www.qwealthreport.com/blog/go...to-avoid-etfs/
Marc Faber has also cautioned against storing gold in CH, as the SNB sold most of Switzerland's gold. When a central bank has little gold, it raises the risk of confiscation. Personally, I would be astonished if this happened, especially in Switzerland. But if confiscation ever happens - and assuming that ETFs contain any gold - they would be the first easy target.

A small safe deposit box in the Raffeissen costs me chf 32 per annum.
I think one could fit 25 kilos in in at Chf 40k per kilo => Chf 1 Million. I think the Chf 32 is a small percentage of charges in relation to stock (0.0032%) especially in relation to what the banks in Switzerland charge you for keeping a bank account open and for you dishonest people; if you keep it in your safe deposit box and don't declare it on your Tax Return, you save the Wealth Tax that is about 0.02 % in Ticino which would cost you chf 200 per annum.

For you lot that want to go into farming; that tractor need maintaining and the governments as they get more and more depserate for taxes will increase Council Tax/Rates and will introduce Capital/Wealth Tax. It also will cost you money to have those gypsies removed.

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

yes, i do think the risk of confiscation is real. that's the main reason i bought gold stored in swiss vaults rather than in london ones.

silver is stored in london though, mainly because i bought through bullionvault and they don't offer storage in switzerland.

What is this gold confiscation that you all talk off?

This kind of thing happening again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

I think this sums it up nicely...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO4I-Rf7rrw&NR=1

Heard that several times; that the emerging middle classes in India & China will put their money into gold because they do not trust anything else.. I do not think Singapore & Dubai have enough people to make a difference compared to the circa 2 billion in India & China.

note percentage of reserves .. which govt has the most?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve

Interesting that the Indian & China govts have such low %s, maybe that is why their middle classes are worried?

Also surprised that the US has so much; that I suppose is why some doom theorists think the US will sell gold to cut the price & boost the dollar

is this the olympic medal table - as US is on top?

something caught my attn - the world gold holding table at the bottom of the page says 52% of gold is in jewellery and only 34% held in central bank+coins+bars.

As far as i know US families care nuts about hoarding gold jewellery. Whereas contrastingly all countries where gold is in demand for jewellery purpose i.e. saudi arabia, india i.e. APAC are at the bottom of the page!??

I am curious to learn who pulls this sort of thing together, ex lehman finance dept?

Just a thought; we all know that price is dependant on supply and demand.

If we look at the population growth:



and then we look at Gold Mining and work out the gold per head available in the world.





The population is increasing at a very high rate and in countries and the people are getting more prosperous in those countries (China, India).
It would therefore seem that the demand for Gold would rise anyway even if just for jewellery; so I would not expect large falls in the price of Gold in the long term anyway.
The real point is, what will the value of money be and any other assets against gold; that is the reason we are discussing it?

When you talk about a "Gold Bubble" consider the demand:

Global mine production amounted to 2,471.1 tonnes in 2007.

India is the world's largest consumer of gold, as Indians buy about 25% of the world's gold,purchasing approximately 800 tonnes of gold every year.
India is also one of the countries with the largest population growth as well, so I really don't think that anyone will be left with a lump of Gold they cannot get rid off and I dount if the price will ever fall below US$1,000.

However, at this moment in time; it is the value of the US Dollar that is actually falling and not Gold going up and that is the reason the graph of the Swiss Franc against Gold is not so steep.



So it is not so favourable as a safety net against the Swiss Franc especially since June 2010 looking at the chart above.

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

Little hint:
1. Most people I know have some gold jewellery - at least wedding bands, but typically a little more than that.
2. A very small percentage of people have coins/bars as an investment.

So you do not need to "hoard" gold in jewellery - the very large number of people having a bit of jewellery vs the very small number of people investing in gold do make sound this number more than sensible to me... I find 34% in investments already a lot.

The low percentage supports the bullish argument that asian central banks will buy to raise their percentage towards western levels.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74576bd6-d...44feabdc0.html
It is widely held amongst gold bugs that much of the fort knox gold has been 'leased' to bullion banks, who sold it into the market to keep the price low. There are many rumours of gold plated tungsten bars. It has been several decades since there was last an audit at fort knox.

My favourite PM conspiracy story is the silver caultrons from the manhattan project

My principle remains the same:
Stay away of something that everyone talks about
So I am not gonna buy gold at such times (=now).

I always remember what a business lecturer told me once.

'Never join a bandwagon. By the time it's a bandwagon...it's too late'

I still believe that gold is a safe place to keep money even if it's not an investment that will yield a big return.

Generally, I would agree with your statement. Once it is known by everyone, the gains/profit have gone and it is actually usually publicised for those with profits to be able to sell and get out.
However, I do believe that Gold has further to run.
I would guess US$1,500 by June 2011 which is a better return than any bank pays at the moment.

Very sensible. The media coverage has been the most extensive I've seen in more than 5 years of following the market. This leads me to expect a substantial pullback - I've very recently sold most of my gold equities. I could be completely wrong, as nobody can predict POG.

The Daily Bell (an Austrian economics blog written in Switzerland) has just published an article discussing whether or not gold is currently a bubble: http://www.thedailybell.com/1458/The-Golden-Bubble.html

Interesting.

To make it simple, gold is high because lately there has been very few safe bets on investments.
As soon as the other well known investments become promising, the interst on gold and similar things will fade.