69% cash (NS&I index linked, 7% 1 yr ICICI/Icesave)
10% Japan large cap index trackers
2.5% FTSE 100 tracker
1.5% BP
13% Gold ETF and Merrill Lynch Gold&General
2% Silver ETF
Remainder between JPM Natural resources, Charter, Friends Provident, Brazil index tracker.

My themes are low costs, protection of capital, protection against inflation and avoiding tax.

What would you do different and why over a 2-5 year STR fund which you will use to buy with?

I cant offer too much help to you I'm afraid but would be interested to know who you use to buy your gold & silver ETF's and what are the charges?

Incidentally I have just invested into NSI indexed linked certs & bought into japan in january, & drip feed into se asia & latin american fund amongst others (but I prefer some of the managed funds e.g. invesco high income).

I use selftrade, £12.50 per trade. ETFs on LSE don't have stamp duty as well, even outwith ISAs.

I simply dont trust ETF's. They dont have the metal, they have the right to buy the metal from someone they hope does have it for a certain price. If problems occur you become a general creditor, you can't go get your metal from them. If their counterparty doesn't have the metal and goes belly up they are stuck with nothing.

I use bullionvault because the metal is there in the vault. Nothing can take it away. The company goes bust i got it, if they are ordered to hand it over, they cant its mine not theirs. I can keep it in different locations and trade in different currencies. The trading is as easy as shares trading. I click to buy/sell instantly or place orders at specific prices. I pay more than £12.50, depending on the trade size, but I am happy to do that for the added security. Even if the government tells me I am not allowed ot own gold, I can say screw you, and move abroad to live off my Swiss gold.

That's certainly not the case with the major metal ETFs traded in the UK. The metal ETFs certainly do have physical metal in secure vaults, 'allocated' on their behalf, in their name, and subject to daily audit. The metal isn't leased to 'short sellers', nor is it used as collateral against any other dealings.

Anyway, the question was broader than metal investing. ETFs are an excellent way to invest in the broader market. Very low costs, and in most cases own the assets outright (exceptions for the derivative funds, such as the non-metal commodities or leverages/short funds).

I've got quite a proportion of my portfolio in a variety of ETFs - divided roughly equally betwen Euro index tracker, brazil index tracker, Euro govt bonds (not a particularly great income, but some defence against devaluation of the £) and a mixed precious metal ETF. I also hold one managed fund - Blackrock UK absolute alpha - mainly because it's returns are very poorly correlated to the rest of my portfolio.

My ISA is with Iweb - £10 a trade for ETFs and shares. They do funds as well, but I use self trade for funds, because they're much cheaper (selftrade don't charge for managed fund purchases, and give a big discount on the initial charge) - whereas with iweb, you pay the £10 purchase comission and the full initial charge!

I signed up with Goldmoney but the CAP verification was a pain, I would needed to have got my accountant involved and I couldn't be bothered. I did wonder about the security of ETFs, as well as having shares in a nominee account.

I didn't realise you could buy managed funds through selftrade.

Also interested in opinions on the asset allocation.

Ok, here goes.

Intro

o I love ETFs and spend a lot of time researching the best for each sector, etc. US, UK, Europe, Canada - not just UK (very limited).
o I maintain a database of currently 1,680 ETFs with a watch list of up to 50 (including trading ones).
o I allocate capital first on a funds basis (with each fund having different risk, etc attributes) and only then allocate within that.
o Some funds are £x fixed while others are %variable of the remaining capital.


House Fund

Objectives
o Security
o House inflation protection

Vehicles
o NS&I premium bonds
o NS&I inflation certificates
o Savings accounts

Trading System
o Buy and hold
o Review interest rates
o Quarterly review

Risk Management
o £xk total
o FSA etc protection limits
o Offshore


Trading Fund

Objectives
o Capital Growth
o No income growth

Vehicles
o On-line trading accounts (ETFs, covered warrants)
o Spreadbetting

Trading System
o Chart patterns (e.g. triangles) for ins/outs
o Weekly MACD for ins/outs
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 5% fund value per
o 10% portfolio value
o Position size rule
o FSA and FDIC limits
o Very tight stop losses


Investment Fund

Objectives
o Capital Growth
o No income growth

Vehicles
o On-line trading accounts (ETFs)

Trading System
o ETFs
o Fundamental sector based
o Pick trending markets
o Accumulate
o Use weekly MACD for ins
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 5-10% fund value per
o 20% portfolio value
o FSA and FDIC limits
o Low tight stop losses


Income Fund

Objectives
o Real inflation protection
o Income accumulation

Vehicles
o On-line trading account

Trading System
o ETFs (currency money funds and regional)
o Low price volatility
o High yields
o Favourable currency
o Accumulate
o Use weekly MACD for ins
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 20% fund value per
o 20% portfolio value
o FSA and FDIC limits
o Medium tight stop losses


Managed Fund

Objectives
o Real inflation protection
o Capital growth

Vehicles
o Pensions
o Endowments
o ISAs

Trading System
o Fundamental sector based
o Pick trending markets
o Annual timing method
o Quarterly review

Risk Management
o As-is fund value per
o As-is portfolio value


Juniors Fund

Objectives
o Capital Growth
o No income growth

Vehicles
o On-line trading account

Trading System
o Gold in ground value
o Safe geography
o Early stage producers
o GEI, etc for others
o Consider fund but can't find one
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 5% fund value per
o 10% portfolio value
o Safe locations
o FSA and FDIC limits
o Low tight stop losses


SIPP Funds

Objectives
o Balanced growth
o Capital growth
o Income growth

Vehicles
o On-line SIPP accounts

Trading System
o Accumulate
o Use weekly MACD for ins
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 30% portfolio value
o 25% income
o 25% precious
o 25% sectors
o 25% commodities
o FSA and FDIC limits


Precious Metals Fund

Objectives
o Real inflation protection
o Capital growth

Vehicles
o Physical
o ETFs

Trading System
o Accumulate
o Use weekly MACD for ins
o Weekly review

Risk Management
o 15% portfolio value
o Physical
o Allocated


Hope this makes sense.

Oh, and I'm about to open a separate commodity fund (with separate trading account) and seed it once the correction has completed. I will invest in intermediate ETFs (as currently done within the investment fund). That is, agriculture, metals, energy, etc ETFs rather than one general ETF (as used in the SIPP account) or the individual commodity ETFs (as used in the trading fund). It will be an accumulate (buy and hold) using MACDs, etc for the ins. I need to decide which ETFs - I have used the Rogers ones before given their wider commodity coverage but their performance to date has not been as good as the DJ-AIG based ones. But then there are DJ-AIG based ones in USD, GBP and EUR to choose from! Or maybe a blend to cover any counterparty risk (when the value gets big enough) - Jim Roger's last index provider went bust!

PHPP (LSE) is a great precious metal ETF for SIPPs and ISAs. It's GBP based (so no additional (exchange rate) costs trading it on the LSE when you use E*Trade. TDW, etc) and it has a nice allocation between the various precious metals (so you only need to hold the one ETF rather than several, further lowering costs). The management fee is also reasonable. They may even hold the physical metals!!!!!!