Deciding on whether to buy gold bullion in bars or coins is something that should be considered carefully.

There are a number of factors that you should be thinking about when making this decision including the value of your investment, the product premiums, where you plan to store it, how long you plan to keep it, whether you intend on selling it all at once or in smaller parts, capital gains tax.  You get the idea.

A little research can go a long way, and we suggest taking the time to thoroughly go through your plans and options before investing, as there is no right or wrong answer to which is better, bars or coins, without first knowing all of the above factors.

Premiums

Premiums are particularly important to consider in your decision to buy gold bullion bars or coins.

Premiums are additional costs that are charged above the gold spot price and are to cover manufacturing costs, handling, packaging, delivery, and insurance.  These costs are unavoidable and even dealers have to pay premiums above the spot price.

Most reputable dealers will charge investors minimum percentage premiums, however, in a bit to be competitive.

In the consideration of buying gold bars vs gold coins, investing in gold bars is the most effective way of minimising your premiums.  The same can be said for silver bars if you are looking to invest in silver bullion.

Let’s look at an example to see why this would be the case:

If you were wanting to buy 1 kilo of gold then your premium for one 1 kilo bar would be less than ten 100g coins as it requires less manufacturing to make the bar.

By buying gold as a bar instead of coins in this instance you would be looking at a saving of 1%, which, depending on how much you buy could be very significant.

Buying one bar, however, does mean that you have less flexibility when you decide you want to sell as you will have to sell the whole amount.  If you had ten coins instead then you could choose to sell half of your gold and keep the other half as an ongoing investment.

This is why it is so important to take the time and assess what you are wanting to do with your investment, how long you want to hold it, and how you might want to sell it at the other end.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice.

Owning physical gold is great.  You can hold it, touch it, and knowing that you are holding a part of your wealth in your hands is half the fun of owning physical gold.  Storing it can sometimes be a bit of a concern, however, so let’s have a look at a few options.

Most investors are happy to keep their gold bullion at home.  In these instances, we recommend taking steps to avoid compromising the safety of your gold and your home.

Keep the information to yourself.  There’s no need to tell your friends and family or talk about the fact that you have gold at your house to your work colleagues.  You never know who is listening.

Keeping your gold in a safe is ideal, particularly if you have one that can be hidden in a wall or the floor.

Unless you have millions of pounds worth of gold the storage of it won’t be a problem.  This means you could also get creative with where you hide it.  Maybe put it in the attic, or under some floorboards.  Ideally, you want to hide it somewhere that, in the unfortunate event you might be burgled, it is not easily findable or identifiable.

For extra peace of mind at home, you could also consider insuring your gold.

If the idea of keeping your gold in your own home doesn’t feel safe enough to you then you also have the option of hiring a safety deposit box from a bank.

When the time finally comes and you want to sell your gold then it couldn’t be any simpler.  There are plenty of highly reputable gold bullion dealers in the UK.

A little research online goes a long way, and you will get immediate offers based on the current global price of gold from them too, so you won’t have any surprises when you go in.

In most circumstances, the dealer that sold you the gold in the first place will often offer the best rate through their gold buy-back service, but there is never any harm in looking around to find the best price.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice.

It is very easy to look at the advice that you should own physical gold with a bit of skepticism.  Particularly as that advice often comes from the bullion companies themselves.

However, these recommendations come with a lot of data to back them up.

Looking back, historically the price of gold has been on an upward trend and has consistently outperformed other investments.

Owning physical gold still has the misconception of being only for the super-wealthy in Britain.  This is a shame as it is indeed a misconception, and in other countries like Germany, Russia, Austria, and Turkey it is very common to own and hold physical gold no matter what your social demographic.

Owning gold bullion is a great investment and is a safe haven for your wealth, no matter how much you have to invest.

If the idea of investing in gold interests you, but you don’t want the safe, low risk investment of physical gold, you could look at gold ETFs.  They are more speculative investments, but often a favoured way for new investors to dip their toe into the golden waters.

A shrewd investor might make the most of both worlds and invest in ETFs to speculate on the price, and buy physical gold for the long investment.

Either way, investing in physical gold is a great way to protect and preserve your wealth, and the historical data backs this statement up.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice.

We like to live by the old adage “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”.  This is particularly important when considering investing in physical gold or gold ETFs.  Let’s have a look at the difference:

Gold ETFs are exchange-traded funds that focus on trading gold as its only commodity.  The ETF may not, however, have the full physical gold backing for what it sells to its customers or investors.  This leaves them vulnerable.

Investing in an ETF also means that your money, and gold, are being controlled by a third party.  This makes you are susceptible to their decisions and their ups and downs.

This third-party risk can leave you very exposed.  For example, in 2011 the London Gold Company ETF closed their business for good and their investors could do nothing about it.

Investing and owning physical gold bullion on the other hand means you own the gold directly.  It is in your control, your responsibility and you are managing your wealth personally.  You aren’t relying on third-party companies to look after your wealth and aren’t subject to their decisions or problems.

To be in control of your own wealth in this way is one of the best ways of safeguarding and preserving your assets.

This is why investing in physical gold would always be our preference over a gold ETF.  You are protecting yourself from financial ruin if by any chance the worst were to happen, like the London Gold Company closing its doors.

Diversify your portfolio:

While taking control of your finances into your own hands is a good thing, and physical gold makes a great safe haven for your wealth, we also want to stress that we wouldn’t advise having gold as your sole investment in your portfolio.

Diversification is just as important a tool for the protection of your wealth as choosing the right investment is.

A well-diversified portfolio spreads your risk across industries, asset classes, and sectors.  So every intelligent investor should be spreading their wealth across stocks, property, and precious metals for a start.

Physical gold is a great investment and is ideal for hedging against your other investments as an insurance policy if nothing else.

If your stocks are underperforming then in all likelihood your gold is doing well, so being diversified helps balance the dips in each sector.

We would recommend only investing 5-10% of your liquid wealth into gold as a start.

It is also worth noting that if your short-term outlook for the world economy is good then you may want to minimise your gold investment as these are the times gold tends to take a dip.

 

That being said, physical gold is a long-term investment and the truth is, always having some in your portfolio is never a bad thing.

 Disclaimer: This is not financial advice.

 

We believe that buying and owning physical gold is the best investment you can make.  Let us convince you why:

Physical gold is an asset that you will own that will always have value.  No matter what turbulence the global economy goes through, gold will always have value.

This makes it a safer place to put your money than stocks and bonds for example.  Stocks and bonds are, at end of the day, associated with companies that can go through ups and downs and even go bankrupt, meaning you lose your money entirely.

Physical gold being an asset that you own protects against this and cannot disappear if a company goes bust.

Gold is often overlooked in lieu of cheaper paper investments like ETFs (or exchange traded funds) too, but this still leaves you open to the fickle stock market and your investment can quickly turn into debt overnight if things take a downward turn in the markets.

The high cost of gold shouldn’t be a deterrent.

You can invest in physical gold in small monetary increments which allows you to build your wealth and leaves you confident that your investment can never fall into debt.

Physical gold also has advantages over electronic gold or paper gold too, and should always be your first choice of investment in our opinion.  Why is that?

Our economy was still recovering from the Great Recession from the last decade with instability in the banking sector, low-interest rates, and volatile currency markets when the Covid pandemic hit.

This has put a massive strain on the global economy, which is now built on unprecedented amounts of printed money and rising national debt.

Physical gold stability in this turbulence and added insurance for your wealth against the inevitable future financial crisis from an underperforming economy.  Why?

Because, as we’ve said, physical gold is a timeless assest that will always have value and doesn’t degrade or disappear over time.  This kind of investment and insurance for your wealth is more important now than ever.

In 2008, former Chancellor Alistair Darling gave a sobering statement that said people in the UK were only 2 hours away from not being able to withdraw any of their money from the bank during the crash.  If it wasn’t for a £50billion pound bailout from the government, the banking system would have crumbled completely.

Despite these earlier lessons, 2020 once again showed us how fickle our system is when a crisis hits, with trillions having to be pumped into the global economy and national debt rising to new peacetime highs in order to combat the effects of the pandemic and stave off a massive crash.

In these uncertain times, a more stable investment like physical gold feels like a welcomed safeguard in our opinion.

 

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice.

“When is the best time to buy gold?” is the question we hear most often.

It’s easy to look back through historical data and with the power of hindsight say “2005/2006 was a great time to invest in gold bullion when the price was only £250 per troy ounce”, or again in 2007/08 when the banking crisis created another perfect opportunity to jump on the gold bandwagon at around £350 per troy ounce.

But hindsight doesn’t help us take advantage of those opportunities today, or help us predict the future, unfortunately.

The other questions we hear a lot are “is it too late to buy gold?”, and, “can the price of gold really keep going up?”

The truth is, there’s no way to really predict what the price of gold is going to do.  But there are plenty of very effective indicators, and patterns to look out for in order to find an opportune time to invest in gold.

These indicators are used by experienced investors every day.  And there were, of course, investors that read these signs back in 2005/06 and 2007/08 that led to them buying gold at the time and seeing their investment more than double in the last decade.

There have been plenty of more recent opportunities too.  It was only back in 2019 that we saw a big jump in the price of gold from £975 per ounce to and all-time sterling high of £1282.

So the opportunities are out there, and will very likely continue to be.

There is a long-term upward trend

Buying gold should not be seen as a short-term investment!  As such, it is important to look at the long-term trend of gold and note that it is currently in a long-term upward trend, and prices have been increasing month on month for years. 

It is equally important, however, to recognise that the price of gold will still rise and fall in the short term meaning you could buy today for one price and then next week or next month the price has dipped by 5%. 

The key is to not panic at this and remember – this is a long-term investment, and the hope is that the market will continue its long terms trend, correct this short-term dip and move back up. 

Our advice is to look at holding your gold for a minimum of 6 months in order to allow these ups and downs to occur.

Of course, if you do see some good gains in the short term, by all means, sell and reap the rewards.  You can then start looking for another opportunity to buy back in at a better price.

Buy gold during uncertain times

Buying gold bullion during uncertain times is a tried and tested method for timing your investment.  Let us explain:

In general, when other investments like stocks or property are underperforming or moving down, the price of gold and silver is generally moving up.

Why is this?

The common theory for this is that major investors, banks, and companies will invest in gold and silver as an insurance policy to cover losses they are accruing through their other investments.  The more they buy the higher the price goes.

This is a great time to buy gold bullion, either as an addition to your portfolio or as a first-time buyer, as you can often get a nice uplift in the price pretty quickly.

The best way to keep an eye out for these opportunities is by paying close attention to big news coming from major institutions like the stock exchange, governments, banks, or even larger companies.

Stock, in particular, is susceptible to big moves with big news, so staying abreast of current affairs means you will be well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

Buy gold when you can

Ultimately, the best time to buy gold is to do it when you can.  When you have some extra money sitting in your bank that you aren’t using and are comfortable risking, then have a look at buying some gold.

It is possible to buy gold in small parts and add to it over time, so there’s no need to worry about saving larger amounts in order to invest.

In fact, spreading your investment over time and buying in smaller chunks is a great way of taking advantage of the price movement, and will often give you a lower average price overall.  This is great as it really allows you to maximise your return on investment.

 

 

“When is the best time to buy gold?” is the question we hear most often.

It’s easy to look back through historical data and with the power of hindsight say “2005/2006 was a great time to invest in gold bullion when the price was only £250 per troy ounce”, or again in 2007/08 when the banking crisis created another perfect opportunity to jump on the gold bandwagon at around £350 per troy ounce.

But hindsight doesn’t help us take advantage of those opportunities today, or help us predict the future, unfortunately.

The other questions we hear a lot are “is it too late to buy gold?”, and, “can the price of gold really keep going up?”

The truth is, there’s no way to really predict what the price of gold is going to do.  But there are plenty of very effective indicators, and patterns to look out for in order to find an opportune time to invest in gold.

These indicators are used by experienced investors every day.  And there were, of course, investors that read these signs back in 2005/06 and 2007/08 that led to them buying gold at the time and seeing their investment more than double in the last decade.

There have been plenty of more recent opportunities too.  It was only back in 2019 that we saw a big jump in the price of gold from £975 per ounce to and all-time sterling high of £1282.

So the opportunities are out there, and will very likely continue to be.

There is a long-term upward trend

Buying gold should not be seen as a short-term investment!  As such, it is important to look at the long-term trend of gold and note that it is currently in a long-term upward trend, and prices have been increasing month on month for years. 

It is equally important, however, to recognise that the price of gold will still rise and fall in the short term meaning you could buy today for one price and then next week or next month the price has dipped by 5%. 

The key is to not panic at this and remember – this is a long-term investment, and the hope is that the market will continue its long terms trend, correct this short-term dip and move back up. 

Our advice is to look at holding your gold for a minimum of 6 months in order to allow these ups and downs to occur.

Of course, if you do see some good gains in the short term, by all means, sell and reap the rewards.  You can then start looking for another opportunity to buy back in at a better price.

Buy gold during uncertain times

Buying gold bullion during uncertain times is a tried and tested method for timing your investment.  Let us explain:

In general, when other investments like stocks or property are underperforming or moving down, the price of gold and silver is generally moving up.

Why is this?

The common theory for this is that major investors, banks, and companies will invest in gold and silver as an insurance policy to cover losses they are accruing through their other investments.  The more they buy the higher the price goes.

This is a great time to buy gold bullion, either as an addition to your portfolio or as a first-time buyer, as you can often get a nice uplift in the price pretty quickly.

The best way to keep an eye out for these opportunities is by paying close attention to big news coming from major institutions like the stock exchange, governments, banks, or even larger companies.

Stock, in particular, is susceptible to big moves with big news, so staying abreast of current affairs means you will be well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

Buy gold when you can

Ultimately, the best time to buy gold is to do it when you can.  When you have some extra money sitting in your bank that you aren’t using and are comfortable risking, then have a look at buying some gold.

It is possible to buy gold in small parts and add to it over time, so there’s no need to worry about saving larger amounts in order to invest.

In fact, spreading your investment over time and buying in smaller chunks is a great way of taking advantage of the price movement, and will often give you a lower average price overall.  This is great as it really allows you to maximise your return on investment.