As one of life's great prevaricators - I need to act.

There is 7k sitting in cash in my wife's SIPP and I need to invest it. Been putting it off for months and months.

So snap decision time (absurd eh? you're supposed to do loads of research). Want to put it into gold.

Anyone suggest a share?

Thanks for any input.

I always thought you were a woman!!

Not a share but you could worse than put it into CF Ruffer BAker Steel Gold Fund ruffer.co.uk

HTH

Gols is in my view in bubble and as such a risk. Given that you know the depths of the recession are yet to come and what a great bottom that will do to the stock market then i would say wait till you see sentiment like it was at the crash lows previously.

If you must invest into bullish bubbly market please prove you ability to take a stop loss.

Gold Bullion Securities. Ticker symbol: GBS. Sedol: B00FHZ8. It trades on the London Stock Exchange.

See also http://www.goldbullion.com

likewise

What about investing in a mixture of films and/or theatre?

ruffer looks interesting. i like their website.

FP,

do you know how one can invest into the gold fund from ruffer ? Is it only through them directly ? I consider to invest 3k into them through a share isa. do you know if this is possible and if so where ? Couldn't find a way to invest into them other then through them directly...

Thx.

Not sure about the Ruffer fund, but I know that you can invest into Merrill Lynch Gold and General through Skandia into a pension. Skandia charges are relatively high, but I am in the process of transferring my old work pension into this.

I found that the bigger pension companies didn't seem to offer the niche funds.

yep, thanks.

I already invested in the Merill Lynch Gold fund, that's why I am curious about ruffer. does anyone know more about them and if you can invest in them through a share isa ?

Yepp, you can invest in this fund through an ISA. Hargreaves Lansdown (who I have my ISA through) offer a 3% initial discount on this. The initial charge is 5%, so you lose 2% straight away (FYI, Annual charge is 1.85%). I don't know of any better discounts available. Possibly a friendly IFA will rebate their commission?

I opted to split my ISA contributions betwen:
Merrill Lynch Gold and General (5% initial charge; 5% discount; 1.5% annual charge)
JPMorgan Natural Resources (5.5% initial charge; 5% discount; 1.5% annual charge)

My choosing the Merrill fund over the Ruffer fund was purely influenced by the discount available and the additional costs of the Ruffer fund eating into my investments. If you believe that Ruffer will outperform Merrills by circa 2% year-on-year, your decision might be different.

BTW, Hargreaves Lansdown also offer a 0.25% annual loyalty bonus on most funds which helps reduce the costs even further.

Remember that you should ALWAYS seek to get a discount when investing in any unit trust or OEIC.

Thanks for the info mongoose,

I wasn't even aware of all these charges when I signed up for my Merrill Lynch Gold fund. Call me naive but I look at it long term and I like smile as one of the more honest banks with good value for money, but it seems the deal I got nevertheless is much better than yours. I am not sure what standard means (see below) but the initial charge seems 0.5 % and the annual charge is the same as yours 1.5% (but got bumped recently slightly to 1.75%), so I suppose I still had a good deal ? Again, I am with smile who then uses fidelity:

fund name / standard / discount / IC / AMC
Merrill Lynch Gold & General Acc / 3.00% / 2.50%/ 0.50% / 1.50%

http://www.smile.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?p...p=Merrill+Lynch

It is good that you went through some form of fund supermarket. They tend to offer some discount for fund investment.

The initial charge information contrasts with what I see in Hargreaves Lansdown.

http://www.hargreaveslansdown.co.uk/sitere...o2.x=13&go2.y=4

The Merrills site also confirms the initial charge is 5%

http://www.mliminternational.com/xxsite/fu...lo=distributors

btw a rough way to work out the initial charge for a unit trust is to look at the bid offer spread:
For the 9th September MLIM Gold and General Bid was 4.16 and offer was 4.39 (you buy at the offer price discounted by whatever discount you have).
The difference between these prices is 4.39-4.16=0.23
0.23/4.16= 0.055 or 5.5%

This spread takes into account the additional costs of creating the units for the fund.

Your deal still looks like you are being charged a 0.5% initial charge. The best way to confirm this is to look at the contract note and compare your purchase price with the actual offer price.

interesting, i looked through my paperwork an the Initial charge is indeed 0.5%. So far so good. There is however an initial commission as well of 0.5% and then an 'Ongoing commision' of 0.5% per *quarter* going to smile, and that is 'paid out of the charges the Fund manager levies'...

I am confused.

Without the figures in front of me, this will be hard to deduce... The initial charge could be one and the same as the initial comission.

But, yes, the ongong comission 'reward' goes to the 'broker'. Smile (or HL) help achieve their income this way (note they say they do not offer advice, blah, blah, blah and rebate initial costs... they work by churning lots of apps).

My earier post did point out that HL rebated part of the annual charge/commision so IMHO works out better than Smile.

However, digging a bit deeper, Cavendish Online seem to offer a better deal with a fixed charge commission that works out even cheaper if you have enough to invest.

Remember, for investment into a UT or OEIC:

1) Never invest directly with a provider, unless they offer a good deal - i.e. a near full discount on comission. Fund supermarkests help to address this.

2) Always seek a discount of most (if not all) of the initial charge.

3) If you can't do either of the above, try going to a local IFA and explaining what you want to do. If you KNOW the funds you want to invest in, persuade them to rebate all comission (as they have not given you advice). They can earn their money from the ongoing commission from the annual charge and any other investments/policies you might put their way...

4)ALWAYS do your own research!!