GoldMoney Explained

 This was the brainchild of highly-respected gold watcher James Turk.  Goldmoney was structured with a cast iron guarantee that there will always be 100% gold backing of every unit of currency (called “goldgrams” in this case) in circulation, and they claim that some others do not have the same cast-iron guarantees in their small print.  Whether this is true or not is hard to say, as for an ordinary investor the small-print is difficult to understand, but the discussions and articles available make interesting reading when deciding on the safety of providers you are considering.

Goldmoney, like e-Gold did, also tries to offer the use of Goldmoney as a medium of payment.  This however is not very heavily used right now, and the majority of investors are gold bugs simply buying gold and silver and holding it.

What could appeal to British or EU citizens about Goldmoney is that it is Jersey-based.  You may trust and understand the rules of Jersey more than those of the Caribbean or Panama.  This is not to say that other organisations are unsafe.  A US-citizen may just as easily understand Panama and believe it to be much safer than Jersey.

As time went by, Goldmoney has opened a variety of vaults to cater for the requirements of international buyers, including London, New York, Zurich, Singapore and Hong Kong.

GoldMoney also has a Silver option, and this represents an excellent opportunity for European Union buyers to buy Silver bullion without legally paying any VAT.  More latterly they also introduced the ability to hold the national currencies of Dollars, Pounds or Euros in your Goldmoney account and receive interest on it.  You can then switch your holding between any of the five denominations (including the two metals), as you see fit.

Knowing that it’s the fees that make investors poor and brokers rich, you are probably best off not utilising this feature.  The fees will quickly eat into your returns, and a buy-and-hold strategy is probably best.

Payment into GoldMoney is by bank transfer.  Payment out can be made by direct bank transfer.

One other aspect of GoldMoney worthy of mention is that at one point the terms and conditions said that if your account is not logged into for 12 years the ownership of your gold reverted to Goldmoney.  Okay,  it sounds unlikely, but consider what would happen if you died and never told anybody about your holding or even if you were unable to use the internet for 12 years due to some kind of accident or national crisis.

Overall, a highly respected organisation with the reputation of a known “gold-watcher” behind it.  Even if you don’t buy Goldmoney then there are articles available for free on the website that make interesting reading.

BullionVault Explained

 This article is about investing in one of the biggest online Gold investment Websites - BullionVault.

Founded by Paul Tustain, BullionVault sits somewhere between Goldmoney, for safety and Gold storage, and the trading services mentioned earlier.  Bullionvault is UK-based, although an additionally interesting feature is the ability to store your gold in their New York, London or Zurich gold vaults.  Dependent on which country you are a citizen of, you will probably feel most comfortable placing your gold outside of that country so that is not subject to your local government jurisdiction, so top marks for considering that feature.

An interesting aspect of the three separate vaults is that these could be considered as separate currencies in their own right.  For example, if at some point in the future there was a repeat of the 1930s US Gold confiscation, gold stored in a New York Vault might become priced significantly lower than gold stored in a Zurich vault, as US holders try to sell and place their gold outside their own jurisdiction.

BullionVault allows you to buy and sell Gold on their impressive looking trading platform, where buyers and sellers of gold from each vault can meet and state their required selling/buying prices, so if you are more inclined to hold gold, occasionally sell on a dip, then buy in again later, then this could well be the best service for you.

Their fees for transactions and monthly storage are really low too, so they are very worthy of investigation.  The storage fee is currently $4 per month fixed, regardless of holding size, and only payable for the months in which you held Gold.

Again, Bullionvault has proved popular with Gold Bugs accumulating gold for the future financial crisis they believe is in the offing.

Payment into BullionVault is by bank transfer.  Payment out is by bank wire transfer to your chosen bank account.

In recent years, they introduced a silver option.  That they took so long may have been something to do with BullionVault being UK-based and the UK charging VAT on silver sales, which could, to many observers, seem to be another example of government getting in the way of free trade.

An Independent Review of The Fleet Street Letter

Okay, time for a shock confession.

A few years ago, I made the foolish mistake of thinking outside my normal realms of Investment Trusts on huge discounts and low-fee ETFs and started thinking of direct share investments.

Taken in by the "longest published newsletter in the UK...since 1937", I made the big mistake of signing up to the "Fleet Street Letter", or FSL.

While some of the articles on world politics and finances are interesting, the "letter" is basically a 4 page scrap of paper and their direct share tips are the biggest load of rubbish I have ever seen. This for three main reasons :-

1) The tips are recycled from other Agora publications, so by the time they make it to FSL they are no longer fresh or hot.

2) The articles subsequently get recycled into a variety of other publications, so you'll normally get to read them in the end - normally a week or two later in the free email advertising circular "The Daily Reckoning".

3) The letter comes out on a Friday, giving the thousands of subscribers a chance to know what the hot tip of the week is. Consequently, the market makers price up the shares on Monday, knowing that a load of Fleet Street Lemmings will pile in regardless.

Obviously the FSL performance figures are based on prices before this Monday, so there's no way investors can get in at the same price, but hey, it helps the performance figure look good when trying to sell it to new subscribers.

Please let this serve as a warning to anyone thinking of subscribing.

Just check out some of their tips in recent years : Widney, Wagon, Drax, Global Energy Development, Star Energy, Retail Decisions.

I admit to being taken in by the last one. I held the shares anyway, but their article made me think it was time to sell. It wasn't. They advised investors to sell at 140p just before the takeover at 200p!

Back to the world of ITs for me and the occasional direct share of my own choice. (Let the discount be your guide and don't be influenced by others, EVER!)