Pamp Suisse Gold Bars

Gold bars are the best way to buy gold bullion.  If you are looking to for a way to buy gold bullion, and not a gold coin that might have numismatic value, buying gold bars is very cost effective.  Why are gold bars so cost effective?  Well, first and foremost, you can buy them in larger sizes.  If you can afford to do so, buy 10 oz. gold bars.  The larger the gold bar, the more cost effective the purchase.  Why is that?  Well, it costs less per ounce to make and store a 10 ounce bar of gold than it does to make and store a 1 ounce bar of gold.

Some great places to buy gold bars online are the following places to buy gold bars online.  There are many place on the Internet to buy gold bullion, but you need to make sure that it is real gold.  You can’t afford to be scammed.

Here are some good places to buy gold bars online:

Apmex.com – Apmex sells a lot of different gold bar products and gold bullion coins.  The Pamp Suisse gold bars and Credit Suisse gold bars are a great option at Apmex.com.

Onlygold.com – Onlygold.com sells a lot of gold bars online.  One of my favorite gold bars sold online at Onlygold.com is the Pamp Suisse Kilogram 99.99% gold bars.  These pure gold bars are awesome gold bullion products.

GoldLine.com – Goldline does not sell gold bars, but it is a great place to buy gold bullion online.  Goldline specializes in selling gold bullion coins like the American Gold Eagles, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf Coins, and gold bullion Kruggerand coins.  Gold Line is the place to go to buy gold coins online.

I hope that this article has given you some ideas to buy gold bars online.  Buying gold bars online is the best way to buy gold bullion if you want physical gold.

Benefits of Buying Gold Bullion

General Benefits of Owning Gold

1.    Gold Offers Protection Against Inflation -

The term inflation means that it costs more dollars today than it did yesterday.  The reason that it costs more is that the value of the dollar is worth less today than yesterday.  Converting your dollars into gold protects you from inflation by getting you money out of a dollar that will be worth less tomorrow and into gold which will hold its value.

2.  Gold Offers Protections Against Currency Fluctuations -

Much like the gold’s protection against inflation, owning gold protects gold owners from a declining dollar, otherwise known as currency risk.   By buying gold bullion gold buyers convert their dollars into gold bullion.  If the dollar declines in value, the value of gold stays the same.  The gold bullion will cost more dollars because dollars are worth less.

3.  Gold Ownership Protects Against Government Instability -

Everyone knows that America’s money is no longer back by gold.  If government instability or financial instability make the dollar worth less money, people’s savings can be wiped out.  But gold buyers are not dependent on the value of the dollar.  They can buy goods with their gold.

There are many more benefits of buying gold bullion, but I believe that the three benefits mentioned in this article are the most important reasons.  Why do you buy gold bullion?

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Technical analysis provides great indicators when to buy and sell gold.  This video does a great job of explaining the basics of gold prices today and the technical analysis for gold trading.  I hope you enjoy the video.

With gold prices today at or above $1,000 per ounce, investors are trying to figure out the most cost effective way to buy gold bullion.  Buying gold bullion is not as easy as buying shares of stock.  However, through the use of gold ETF funds, learning how to buy gold bullion has become easier.

But gold ETF funds are not the only way to buy gold bullion.  Gold bullion can be purchased in many different forms.  If a gold investor is looking to purchase physical gold to hold and store, he can purchase gold bullion bars, scrap gold, gold bullion coins, or rare gold coins with numismatic value.

How To Buy Gold Bullion Coins

Mints around the world sell gold bullion coins for investors and collectors.  Some of the most desired gold bullion coins are the American Eagle Gold Coins sold by the United States Mint.  However, some other popular gold bullion coins are Gold China Panda Coins, Royal Mint Sovereign Gold Coins and South African Krugerrand Gold Coins.

There are four main drawbacks to buying and selling gold bullion coins.  The first is the acquisition cost.  Gold dealers will not sell you gold coins at the gold spot price.  Instead, the Mint charges a premium to cover its overhead and profit and the dealer that you purchase from charges a premium to cover its overhead and profit.  If you are buying online or through the mail, there will also be transportation fees. In addition to the acquisition costs, buying gold bullion coins includes a storage cost, insurance cost and sale transaction fee often in the form of a sale price below the current gold spot price when you go to sell the gold coins.

A best practice for how to buy gold bullion coins is to find a local gold bullion coin dealer to buy from.  If you buy regularly or in bulk, you can often get lower prices from a local gold bullion coin dealer.  This is especially true if you tell the dealer that you want to buy XX ounces ahead of time.  The coin dealer can acquire the gold bullion coins and sell them to you right away knowing he has a client. I think that this is the best way to buy gold bullion coins.  But, it is not the most cost efficient way.

How To Buy Gold Bullion Through Gold ETF Funds

Buying gold bullion using gold ETF funds is the most cost efficient way to purchase gold bullion.  The purchase commission and sale commission on gold ETF funds transactions is often much lower than the premium you pay when buying gold coins.  If you would like to read more about investing in gold using gold ETF funds, I encourage you to read my primer on Gold ETF Funds.  While you are at it, you might want to also read our popular article on understanding gold market prices.

I believe that buying gold ETF funds is the most cost efficient way to invest in the gold market.  However, many investors want to own physical gold.  The reason being that ETF funds are still more subject to government regulations.  But at the end of the day you can’t actually turn in your shares in the gold ETF fund for the physical gold in the vault.

Therefore, if you want to buy physical gold bullion, I recommend buying gold bars and gold coins.  If you have any additional questions for how to buy gold bullion, please ask them in the comments below.

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What are ETF Funds?

The first step to learning how to invest in gold ETF funds is understand what are ETF funds.  Before investing in any type of investment vehicle, it is important that you understand what you are investing in.  ETF Funds are exchange-traded mutual funds.

Ok, so EFT funds are exchange-traded mutual funds, but what does exchange-traded mean?  Let’s break this down into smaller pieces.  Exchange-traded means that these investment units are traded on the major stock exchanges, like the American Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange.  However, ETF Funds are primarily traded on the American Stock Exchange.

The funds part of ETF Funds means that these are investing vehicles that hold many companies.  When you invest in ETFs you are not buying a single company, but instead a bunch of companies.

What are gold ETF funds?

Unlike mutual funds, gold ETF funds allow you to invest in gold itself.  Gold ETF Funds buy gold  and in exchange for such gold deposits the gold ETF funds issue shares in baskets.  The purpose of gold etf funds is for its shares to mirror the price performance of gold bullion.  Therefore, if the price of gold bullion goes up 10%, the gold etf funds share price would also go up 10%.  These gold ETF funds allow investors to invest in the gold market buy buying securities as opposed to purchasing phyical gold bullion.

Why gold ETF Funds are an efficient way to buy gold?

Buying gold bullion presents many costs that make it difficult for the average investor to purchase gold bullion.  If you buy gold bullion yourself, you will have to deal with the logistics of buying gold bullion, the storage of gold bullion, insuring your gold bullion, and the cost to eventually sell it.  These high costs in buying gold bullion often prevent people for investing in gold.  However, gold etf funds solve this barrier of entry problem for buying gold bullion.

The logistics of buying and selling gold bullion is take care of for you by the gold ETF funds.  All that gold etf investors need to buy are ETF shares.  Investors in Gold ETF funds do not have to worry about storing the gold or insuring the gold.  The gold ETF funds purchase the physical gold, take care of the storage and buy insurance policies covering the gold.

What are the benefits of gold ETF funds?

Gold ETF Funds offer a lot of benefits to people who want to invest in gold.  These benefits include,

Easy to purchase gold ETF shares – Gold ETF funds make it really easy to invest in the gold market.  Through your brokerage account you can buy and sell your ETF shares any time of the day.  Compare this to buying gold bullion where you have to find a gold dealer, drive to the gold dealer, and then purchase a fixed amount of gold bullion.  But let’s say that you only have $1000 to invest in gold.  At today’s gold prices you might not be able buy one gold ounce.  Therefore you couldn’t buy it.  But buying ETF shares allows you to buy fractional amounts of gold bullion.

Gold ETF funds are cost efficient – Another benefit of gold etf funds is that they are a cost efficient way to buy gold.  While you have to pay fees to the gold ETF fund, these costs will be lower than the costs associated with buying phyisical gold yourself.  The costs to purchase, store, insure and sell should all be lower making gold ETF funds very efficient for investing in gold.

What are some Gold ETF Funds?

There are many gold ETF funds, but some of the most popular are the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), and ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL).

SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) – The SPDR Gold Trust ETF was the first gold ETF fund.  Each share of the SPDR Gold Trust costs one-tenth the price of one ounce of gold.  The SPDR Gold Trust ETF purchases gold bullion by buying London Good Delivery Bars which come in 400 ounces of gold bullion.

Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) – The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF is designed to follow the Amex Gold Miners Index which is comprised of 32 gold mining companies.  This gold ETF fund allows you to invest in gold mining companies through index investing.

ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL) – If you are looking for a more volatile way to invest in gold, the ProShares Ultra Gold ETF is designed to move twice as much as the price of gold moves.  Therefore is the price of gold increases 5%, the ProShares Ultra Gold ETF price should go up 10%.

I hope that this primer on Gold ETF Funds has been helpful.  If you have any questions about this article or Gold ETF Funds in general, please ask your questions in the comments below.