The dealers aren't increasing their premiums because people won't pay them and would rather go without. I don't hear of people outbidding each other to buy what is left in a dealer's inventory. If people are so desperate, why aren't they offerring to pay $100 premium, then another guy says $200, the...

The interesting thing about the Swiss story is the reference to money laundering. It may be a case of the client not having up to date identification documents, which can happen if he was an old client pre-AML rules. Many jurisdictions have a requirement for the client to be properly IDed before any...

This is why the Perth Mint doesn't send metal until we have received payment in full, no COD. I'm surprised they would send it without having got your money.

Gold is a 24hr over the counter market, so no central exchange you can get a price from. If you are looking for daily data over a long period of time, then use the London Fixes, which you can download from here http://www.perthmint.com.au/investment_invest_in_gold_precious_metal_prices.aspx in one c...

Is Perth Minth not a custodian or bailee which are reportable activities? We are looking into the regulations, but it is not that straightforward as there is a carve out for Government entities and also there is a test as to how much of your business is custodial below which you are not deemed a cu...

goodasgold - you do want to check that the FX rates being used are reasonable and don't have a large buy/sell spread themselves as that is a form of hidden cost. Even with tight FX rates, the fact is that PMGOLD on the buy and sell will probably cost more because there is an FX leg involved plus PMG...

The Perth Mint is currently not reporting anything to any US agency. I assume you are referring to FATCA, which is not yet in operation, but in any case being a non-bank Government owned entity we do not think it applies to us. Anyway, all the US govt has to do is go to its banks and ask for a copy ...

I'm not really familiar with the US brokerage business, so don't know who offers access to overseas stock exchanges.

Julian Phillips has been pushing this in a recent series of articles, but it is all about selling some trust structure he has put together that is supposedly protected against forceful repatriation. The only way the Perth Mint will hand over gold is if the US government applies to our local courts f...

stuper1 - under the Australian Securities Exchange rules we have to maintain fair buy and sell prices for PMGOLD at all times. We have contracted Deutsche Bank to do that for us (as we don't have direct access to the ASX) and they always have a bid and ask in the market at all times. So it is not li...

catacomb, Please see this response to someone asking about currency exposure regarding PMGOLD http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/http://77.104.139.218/~gyroscop/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=60655#p60655 The fact is that it doesn't matter where the ETF is located, you have currency exposure to USD as tha...

stuper1 - any online broker should show both bid and ask for any exchange quoted product/stock. Note PMGOLD is traded in Australian hours. goodasgold - when you buy PMGOLD or any ETF on any market you do not have any currency risk because you are holding a product denominated in ounces, not AUD or U...

I said it was a "version" of our unallocated, not that is was unallocated sold twice. If someone buys 10 ounces of unallocated directly from us in our Depository, we go out and buy 10oz of gold and use that in the factory. If someone else buys 1000 PMGOLDs, we go out and buy 10oz of gold a...

To clarify, the buy/sell spread is not a fee we get, by that I meant the difference between the buying and selling prices on the exchange. It is a factor in the total end cost an investor pays. IAU and GLD have very low buy/sell spreads compared to PMGOLD, which does not have the volume of trading t...

The fees are pretty straightforward, just 0.15% management fee and a buy/sell spread on the market of usually 1%. There are no sales taxes in Australia on gold. Redemption fees (ie collecting physical) depends on what size coin/bar you take and are at our usual retail prices, but I assume this is no...

I think I forgot that I would have to pay Australian taxes when it comes time to sell, along with U.S. taxes (unless it's in my Roth IRA).  I think that is going to make this a no go, unless I'm missing something.  Does anybody know what the tax consequences would be? Now this isn't tax advice nor ...

They list an expense ratio of 0.15%, but it actually starts at 0.075% for less than 13.34 oz of gold and increases up to a maximum of 0.15% as you buy more. That happens because we collect the 0.15% management fee by deducting units from investors, rather than selling gold backing the units. Becaus...

Rjg, if you are of the view that you can't see the costs of holding physical justified by the risk of some SHTF financial collapse, then just buy unallocated with the Perth Mint and you have no ongoing storage cost nor coin/bar premium markups. With ETFs I don't see the point holding multiple ones -...

Oh one shouldn't feel safe at all about the legals of the ETFs. But they do have the gold - try and argue against this sort of massive data analysis http://screwtapefiles.blogspot.com.au/p ... abase.html

Re marshmallows, the SPDR Gold Trust Prospectus dated 26 April 2012 does not have the previous clause about the Custodian not being responsible for purity and quality. Anyway, I think if the Custodian took unallocated gold deposited with it by Authorized Participants and instead of allocating physic...

Unallocated doesn't attract a storage fee because we use the metal in our operations. However there is a limit to how much working inventory we need, even with increasing sales of coins and bars. If we just kept on accepting unallocated we'd have a situation where the excess gold above our working r...

Unallocated gold has no storage fee whereas allocated does. Unallocated gold will close to new inflows at some point with existing holdings being grandfathered, just like we did with closing unallocated silver. We will probably offer a pooled allocated gold at that time, which will have a storage fe...

ahhrunforthehills, "how much $$ in gold the Perth has of US citizens money" Perth Mint Depository holds around $3.5 billion and about half of our customers are American. This is not exactly a lot of money to a Government who is cash strapped in the trillions. I therefore don't see Perth Mi...

I'm very surprised the Canadian Mint program is not insured. The Perth Mint fully insures its metal, it adds to the cost but add another layer on top of the Government Guarantee. Further to confiscation, I was the first to highlight that section in the Banking Act and discuss it much more detail her...

http://www.perthmintbullion.com/Blog/Blog/12-03-26/Fake_Bars_-_The_Facts.aspx "In the experience of The Perth Mint, such fakes are a rare occurrence. In the 20 years our Refinery Manager has been working at the Mint, he has never seen a fake bar come through our operations. Even in the professi...