Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Ask your investment, budget, and other money related questions here
Post Reply
User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Making some portfolio lemonade. Physical gold is better than holding an ETF, but I would like to protect my retirement accounts from sequence of returns risk.

Also wondering if it would be wise to buy silver ETFs because holding any meaningful amount of physical silver is impractical, so using silver ETFs would be a way to diversify precious metal holdings.

I have a Roth IRA with Fidelity and a SEP IRA with Vanguard. I care more about my Roth IRA being protected than my SEP, because if my SEP gets ravaged by inflation I just pay fewer taxes. (Or am I thinking incorrectly?)

I’m trying to be cognizant of expense ratios. Currently looking at IAU and SGOL for gold, SLV for silver, and CEF for both.

What do you use?

Alternatively, tell me why you think owning a metals ETF is a terrible idea.

Kriegsspiel
Posts: 952
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:05 pm

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

When I used ETFs for some of my gold, I had IAU. I believe at the time it had the lowest expense ratio at the time.

ThisDinosaur
Posts: 997
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:31 am

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by ThisDinosaur »

A prior Gold ETF discussion:
viewtopic.php?t=8971
I am mostly IAU with some GLD. Total about 12.5% of my NW.

wrt Physical gold vs. ETF, I ultimately decided that the ETF expense ratio was equivalent to the storage fee. Anyone you might store your physical gold with would likely be somewhat less trustworthy than a fund company, and I certainly don't want 5-25% of my NW in a vault in my house, ripe for burglary.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Thanks ThisDinosaur. I do like a safety deposit box for physical over a fund. I like knowing I can drive there on any given day and put hands on what’s mine. If it turns out that all of IAU’s holdings have been secretly sold to the Chinese, I’m not sure who I’m supposed to hold accountable.

KevinW
Posts: 959
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by KevinW »

I focus on expense ratios. IAU was the lowest for a long time at .25%, but the new GLDM is slightly lower at 0.18%.

If this is part of a permanent portfolio, you should hold only gold, no silver. Gold is predominantly a monetary metal while silver is predominantly an industrial commodity.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

@KevinW

I guess you would say my portfolio is PP-influenced but I don’t adhere to it directly. I’ve read Harry Browne’s books as well as Craig Rowland’s, and thru Marc Spitznagel’s Dao of Capital and a lot I’ve read from JLF and others on this forum I would say my thinking on economics is of the Austrian School.

I think the future will rhyme with the past but not repeat itself exactly, and I’m very bearish on a portfolio that is 50% government paper, so at this point I’m closer to the type of portfolio being espoused by Marc Faber:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10020&start=20#p170492

The thing about silver is that unlike platinum and the other precious metals is that it is still seems to correlate very well with gold, so it has the dual purpose of industrial commodity and store of value. There’s still a long history of a bimetallic standard, even though all governments have abandoned the concept of sound money in favor of never-ending debt:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3599&start=140#p163853

The “gold-to-silver ratio” is very high right now, but I don’t know what that is worth. Even if I incorporated silver, it would be probably similar to how PRPFX is set up with mostly gold and just a bit of silver to try and capitalize on a silver market that trades with much lower volume and therefore might have greater upside potential.

************

I’m also wondering if I should hold metal ETFs exclusively in my Roth IRA and none in my SEP IRA. If a currency crisis eroded the real value of my SEP, well, it’s that much fewer taxes I will pay in real terms.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-sli ... rc=applewf

Government backed gold ETF. More or less reputable than a metals ETF backed by a financial institution? We know financial institutions are corrupt and barely solvent....but then again, so are governments.

KevinW
Posts: 959
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by KevinW »

Yes, the expense ratio of GLDM and that new AAAU are tied at 0.18%, so I'm not sure which to favor. There's probably a tiebreaking factor buried in their prospectuses somewhere, but I haven't dug in yet.

classical_Liberal
Posts: 2283
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:05 am

Re: Best Gold or Silver ETFs?

Post by classical_Liberal »

...

Post Reply