Advantages and Disadvantages of Gold ETFs
Gold ETFs can provide an attractive low-risk investment option that can add diversification to your portfolio. Prior to making an investment decision, be sure to carefully investigate each ETF’s assets, costs and past performance before investing.
Gold ETFs may be more affordable and liquid alternatives to physical gold; however, they still carry risks.
Costs
Gold ETFs offer lower costs than purchasing physical gold, including insurance and storage fees, real-time trading capabilities and being backed by bullion held at an approved source that eliminates counterparty risk associated with physical gold ownership.
However, investors should remain mindful of the associated risks when investing in such products. For instance, gold ETFs could close if their sponsor experiences financial difficulty; additionally, many ETFs trade on derivative markets with intraday pricing, which could prompt knee-jerk trading decisions.
Gold ETFs may use leverage, which may magnify losses as well as gains and make them unsuitable for retail investors. Furthermore, ETFs are susceptible to systemic risks while physical gold remains immune; Kinesis provides a solution that provides convenience and liquidity with security as physical gold offers both alternatives.
Liquidity
Gold ETFs provide an easy, affordable way to invest in gold. More cost-efficient than owning physical gold and more tax-efficient than mutual funds, gold ETFs also act as a safeguard against inflation and currency fluctuations. Investors should note that they will not actually own physical gold; instead they will receive a document outlining their share in the fund’s holdings – this may make selling it during a crisis more challenging.
Gold ETFs offer many advantages over physical gold, including being bought and sold on regular stock markets and transparent pricing. Furthermore, each unit of ETF shares represents one gram of gold which makes them more liquid than physical bullion; smaller denominations allow investors to add it to their portfolio without incurring storage fees associated with physical bullion ownership.
Taxes
Gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) offer investors convenient exposure to gold prices, but they come with their own set of tax issues. Although these funds function similarly to stocks, their taxation by the government differs substantially – an impediment to investment for many people.
Physical gold investments provide tangible assets that provide peace of mind to their holders, yet come at the price of dealer markups, storage fees and management fees – as well as counterparty risk when seeking buyers for your gold.
As with any physical investment, when holding physical gold in a taxable account such as a traditional IRA or 401(k), any gains they realize when selling assets must be reported as “phantom income” to the IRS – unfortunately an unavoidable part of owning precious metals. An exception exists only when investing in physical gold ETFs.
Tracking errors
Though gold ETFs provide several advantages, investors must be wary of their risks. One such risk lies in that gold ETFs do not actually own physical gold; rather they represent shares in a trust that holds gold. As part of covering expenses, this trust often needs to sell some holdings off to cover its expenses which decreases the underlying asset value per share and results in tracking error.
Tracking errors are caused by market volatility, trading costs and using leverage – which may cause deviations from the intended performance of an ETF.
Gold ETFs may also be less liquid than physical gold, making selling difficult and tax liabilities higher; physical gold can provide more attractive investment vehicles without subjecting you to such costs.
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