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Does anyone here use bullion vault

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 kipper12 03 Sep 2016
I'm a bit fed up of low interest and was thinking of something different. I know gold has always done well, but is it for the relatively small investor, around 10k.

I looked around a bit and came across bullion value which appears an easy way of investing in gold and silver, compared to coins, physical bars etc.

Has anyone else here had experience of bullion vault, and if so was it positive.

Cheers
Removed User 03 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

I've used them off and on but sold what metals I had with them and bought physical. If you're looking to make money precious metals really aren't the way to do it (and more importantly right now is not a good time to get into gold buying, the price is likely to drop quite a bit in the coming months).

If your goal is higher returns than a savers account and you're happy to undertake higher risk for higher return, which you probably are if you're considering gold, I think looking at a buy to let property might be a good idea. Can't really go wrong with property in terms of investments in the UK. Otherwise put it in an ISA for the guaranteed interest. And of course make sure you speak to a financial adviser first whatever you end up doing!

HTH
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 Dax H 03 Sep 2016
In reply to Removed User:

Not knocking your expertise or anything but why do you think gold will drop a lot in the next few months?

I ask because I am currently selling an investment house (fed up of the hassle of being a landlord) and I was thinking of putting some of that money in to gold.
Not a lot, maybe 10k or so like the op.
 Sean_J 03 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

Have you thought about peer-to-peer lending? As with most investments they do come with an element of risk though of course, P2P perhaps more than most. It's certainly different though and the interest rates are excellent, depending on the platform(s) you use.
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 wintertree 03 Sep 2016
In reply to Sean_J:

Seconded. Ratesetter in particular is very interesting I think.

Added bonus - every £ leant through them is not a pound leant through the overly expensive, marketing heavy, legacy IT based systems of the morally corrupt high street banks...
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 wintertree 03 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

At some point asteroid mining is going to plummet the value of gold and platinum.

Probably not for 25+ years but its days are numbered.

Shorter term you might look at platinum instead of gold.
Post edited at 19:31
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 JJL 03 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

Jeepers creepers.

For amateur investors, even experienced ones, gold is a bridge too far. The value is driven overwhelmingly by sentiment, not underlying true value (which would be demand vs genuine supply led). The only worse things I can think of are diamonds and wine.

For genuine industrial demand there is heaps of gold. It ought to track global electronics but it doesn't. You may as well gamble on horses
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 plyometrics 03 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

Open yourself a Barclays trading account and start having some fun trading those companies that dig the stuff up, amongst others.
 Sean_J 03 Sep 2016
In reply to wintertree:

Indeed! I use Ratesetter a bit myself, they have an offer on where you get a £100 bonus for holding 1k with them for a year - so that works out to about 13-14% over a year, with relatively low risk.

Landbay do another good instant access account, with a better interest rate than RS. If you're willing to put in a lot of work playing detective on individual loans to assess how likely they are to be repaid on schedule and not default, then Saving Stream / Money Thing / Thin Cats are all good sites to use as they offer a better ROI - some loans can still default for no apparent reason despite all your due diligence, but a diverse portfolio will cope with this and the overall returns are still excellent.
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 wintertree 03 Sep 2016
In reply to Sean_J:

> If you're willing to put in a lot of work playing detective on individual loans to assess how likely they are to be repaid on schedule and not default, then ...

It's the quality of Ratesetter's analytics for this that sold it to me. If I had the time to analyse details like you suggest I'd probably go for stocks instead. Not that my preferences should dissuade others from doing like you suggest! I'd just rather spend my time studying companies than individuals.

It is worth remember that all the peer to peer stuff started in a bad time financially and they've grown with the recovery. None of them are yet battle tested against the onset of a recession.
Post edited at 20:12
 wintertree 03 Sep 2016
In reply to JJL:
> For genuine industrial demand there is heaps of gold.

I get where you're coming from - there's enough gold for its current uses. There are many more potential uses however that are precluded because there isn't enough gold out there to make it worth while. The market for gold would be worth hundreds of times more if it wasn't so scarce.

There're about 3 Olympic swimming pools worth of mined, refined gold in the world. Or put another way there's roughly a fifth of a teaspoon of gold per person in the world. Edit: so there isn't enough gold in the world for every adult to have a gold wedding ring, for example.

Supposedly about half of what we have now was mined in the Roman and pre-Roman eras and has been conserved ever since. If true and considering the almost unimaginable increase in working population, surveying technology, mining machinery and sheer energy available to civilisation between then and now you get some appreciation of just of rare gold now is - at least in the planetary crust as opposed to what lies beneath.
Post edited at 20:26
OP kipper12 04 Sep 2016
In reply to plyometrics:
Say from 2008, would,I have been better with 10k in a long term is a, gold, or elsewhere. That's what I'm trying to understand.
 stevieb 04 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:
I'm no expert, but as I understand it, gold is heavily counter cyclical, so it does well in recessions, as a safe haven, but does badly during boom times. So it will have done well 2008-2016.
Looking historically, Investing in Gold would be taking a bet that we have world turmoil or the world economy continues to struggle for the next few years.
Two things that could alter this in golds favour are the rise of India, where gold is more valued, and the concentration of wealth in fewer hands but I don't know if these are significant.

 marsbar 04 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

I find the idea of gold bars sitting around quite sad.
 Coel Hellier 04 Sep 2016
In reply to Removed User:

> ... I think looking at a buy to let property might be a good idea.

So long as you're ok with the considerable hassle of doing that.

> And of course make sure you speak to a financial adviser first whatever you end up doing!

Why? I'd have thought that for most things, most people can judge themselves sufficiently well. For a 10k pot, the fees of any advisor would be a large fraction of any return.
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Removed User 04 Sep 2016
In reply to Coel Hellier:

> So long as you're ok with the considerable hassle of doing that.

Many letting agents (estate agents) will do almost every part of property management including finding tenants/collecting rent/maintenance if needed. Most do it for a percentage of the rental money, often quite a low percentage. If he's getting the mtg covered and can pay the agents as well it's a pretty successful way to invest.

> Why? I'd have thought that for most things, most people can judge themselves sufficiently well. For a 10k pot, the fees of any advisor would be a large fraction of any return.

Well he posted here, on ukc, about buying precious metals for investment purposes... not bashing the OP but anyone who does any sort of investing whatsoever will tell you PMs is very much not the way to go. Therefore getting serious advice from a professional who could point in the right direction would be money well spent imo. I think you're overestimating the amount of money something like this would cost.
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Removed User 05 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

> I looked around a bit and came across bullion value which appears an easy way of investing in gold and silver, compared to coins, physical bars etc.

It's probably better if you're thinking of making money through trading on a day-to-day basis, rather than just buying a big lump and waiting to see if it gains in value over a longer period. Since they charge you (not much, but it adds up) for the gold/silver they hold for you, it's probably better just to buy the physical metal yourself if you just wanted some to keep under the bed.
But it makes buying and selling pretty simple, and probably you could make money if you have time (and nerves) to deal in the markets.
In reply to Dax H:

One factor is the gold price is effected by the value of the US Dollar. There is speculation that there could be rate hikes by the FED in the nearish future. A stronger dollar effects the gold price.

Another point worth considering is a lot of people think that if all the people in the world who own "paper" gold. That would be ETFs, futures etc (basically investment vehicles rather than holding the metal yourself (physical)) asked for delivery there would be not enough gold to go around. This means the price can be easily manipulated as the main market and price setting is the COMEX futures market. Not a physical market (most of the physical sits in vaults in London and NY and never moves) Who would manipulate the gold market? Well (tin foil hat time)...govts wishing to protect their FIAT money systems. When people start to not trust the govts backing of their currencies, they turn to other forms of money. Precious metals have been used for centuries as money and cannot be printed. IF a fiat currency weakens then gold will shoot up in that currency and is a sure sign of rampant inflation. The US govt (Emperor) have no interest in having their new clothes exposed (USD) for what it is and use their minions (JPM etc. ) to manipulate gold price via the COMEX to keep it in check. (remove tin foil hat)

If I had #10k to invest and enjoyed risk I would actually invest in Silver. Its around $19 (was as high as $50 a few years ago) and behaves broadly in line with gold but on steroids (it swings further in % terms up or down than gold) It has more industrial uses and its traditional ratio with gold has been around 16 to 1 (you need 16 ounces of siver to buy 1 ounce of gold). Its currently about 70 to 1. Make of that what you will (theres probably a lot of reasons but....)

Good luck what ever you decide to do
 Dax H 05 Sep 2016
In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Cheers for that. Tinfoil aside my main reason for thinking about gold (physical, probably coins) is precisely because it can't be printed.
We don't know what will happen with either the pound or the euro but I suspect quite dire things.
Gold though it is valued in dollar's has a worldwide value.
Got to admit I had not thought about silver, I will look in to that.
 Owen W-G 05 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

If you had £10k to invest, why not stick it in a S&S ISA for the long term.
Irrespective of risk tolerance, I'm sure you get a better ROI than buying some gold.

If you insist on gold, the cost of buying (and selling, down the line) physical metal to hoard will eat into your return. Buying into gold miners or gold funds is the alternative but the prices are very high, up something like 100% in last year so can only see your investment depreciating in the foreseeable future.
OP kipper12 05 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

Cheers for the helpful advice, not sure where to go yet, but PM don't necessarily sound the way forward.
 Owen W-G 05 Sep 2016
In reply to kipper12:

Buying a piece of these, or something similar, is possibly your best solution if you really want a piece of the gold market.

Easy with hindsight: if you had done so in January, you could have doubled your money by now. I can't see fund value doing anything but go down, unless Trump gets voted in.

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-re...
http://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/i/ishares-physical-metals-...


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