Has anyone on the thread used the KITCO precious metal pooling accounts? Also, does anyone know if you can just walk into their offices, either in the U. S. or Canada, and sell back Maple Leafs? Has anyone actually sold gold, as opposed to buying it?
KITCO is the only place I have ever seen with explicit instructions, apparently revealing all charges and practices, for more or less conveniently selling physical gold coins back (albeit at a spread of over $20). I have not checked to see what the postage, registration, and insurance fees would be at the Post Office for, say, a shipment of $8,000 worth of gold to them. Maybe I can find it on a postage site: OK, the maximum you can insure in U. S. Post Office is $5,000, and that would cost you $51. So with other fees, that probably means close to $60. So if you had bought ten Maple Leafs at $250 and gold went to $500, your net profit would be about $2,200, or about 88%, and if your holding period was five years to get this, your annual return would be about 12.5% --which is OK. It would preserve capital.
But on the whole for speculation in gold I much prefer the NEM LEAP calls [LIEAD, 20s of Jan 04]. Buy and sell with a few keystrokes, and a gold price of $325 in the next two years might mean 100% profit. The batch I bought early this month are up 30%. Others I bought too soon and still have not broken even. |
