<<Other than the fun of having some of these little shiney things floating around the house, what's the upside as opposed to buying a mining stock?>>
This question enters some pretty dark territory, but it's worth remembering that if gold DOES hit $800 or $1500/oz, there will be a lot of pressure on the government (who's leased out most if not all of the treasury's gold) to nationalize miners to "stabilize the economy". If so, bullion will be MUCH better to hold than stocks, believe me!
Furthermore, if the dollar has an "accident" in the reasonably near future, an Argentinian-style "run on the bank" would result in dollars not being available. What serves as "money" in that case (no one knows, but 1/10 oz gold eagles, and silver eagles could be quite useful in that scenario).
Finally, although I hold a WHOLE bunch of mining stocks, they're subject to the same sorts of financial chicanery as any other equity. Most of the names tossed around these days seem pretty solid, if only because they had to weather a 20 year bear market. But Bre-X wasn't that long ago...
EDIT: Personally, I'd recommend that everyone deploy a minimum of 1-2% of their net worth in gold bullion, if only as an insurance policy they (hopefully) will never use. The old joke about bullion asset allocation is "you need just enough to bribe the border guards!"<G> |
