does a gold mutual fund exist that is similar to SGOL, GTU?

[cabronjames]

Advising my friend on 401k lemonade.

She has a "Self-Directed Brokerage Account" option on her account.

Not so great news though. What is highly bogus: A SDBA is for knowledgeable investors who understand the
risks and costs associated with mutual fund investments.
You will not be able to invest in individual securities, such as
stocks, bonds exchange traded funds (EFTs) or options."

Yes indeed, they "added insult to injury" by misspelling ETF.

Is there any gold bullion mutual fund ala SGOL, GLD, GTU?  I think that such a gold mutual fund does NOT exist, I just want to verify this.  Thx again in advance!

[Storm]

There are a few of them out there:

https://news.fidelity.com/news/article. ... tual-funds

Try those 4.  The returns may or may not be as good as GLD/SGOL/IAU, but at least it gives you some gold exposure.

[cabronjames]

There are a few of them out there:

https://news.fidelity.com/news/article. ... tual-funds

Try those 4.  The returns may or may not be as good as GLD/SGOL/IAU, but at least it gives you some gold exposure.

Thx for the link Storm.

Aren't these funds primarily a gold miner industry stock active fund?  I doubt that could be acceptable for the gold allocation.  What if stock markets in general crash, with the PE10 going back to historical median, while gold bullion keeps rising?

EDIT: I ran this fund list (BGEIX FSAGX GOLDX RYPMX) vs GLD (the gold bullion ETF with the most price history, & the mutual funds have more history than GLD).  The time period is 2004-11-18 to 2011-08-15.  The correlations are not very strong: 0.72 - 0.75.

[D1984]

As far as I know there are no US-based "purely gold bullion" mutual funds, only ETFs/CEFs. There are several bullion mutual funds in Canada run by Sprott, BMG, adnd McKenzie but I don't presume foreign mutual funds would be available to a US investor with a self-directed 401K that wouldn't even allow them to access ETFs or stocks.

Also, aren't there some restrictions on US mutual funds by the SEC that any fund that has to be marked to market at the close of the trading day (as open-ended mutual funds do) can only invest 20% (I think it was 20%; it may have been 25% ) in "illiquid assets?" I'm not sure if gold bullion is considered "illiquid" or not.

SInce you have access to a correlation tracker (BTW which one are you using to track back to 2004...the only free trackers I can find will only do correlation tracking of 1-year or less), try FEGIX against GLD and see what the correlation is; FEGIX is the institutional non-load share class of SGGDX and might be available without the minimum $1 million investment if it's inside an institutional account like a large-employer 401K. The reasons I suggested this fund are that:
A. it was one of the "best houses in a bad neighborhood" in late 2008 when "everything went down together except correlation" (well, correlation and long-term treasuries, anyway); it only lost about 15-20% compared to gold bullion (some gold funds lost 40% +),,

B. Because it typically holds between 11 and 20% gold bullion as one of its assets...it currently holds about 14% gold bullion,

C. In the last month or so of market turmoil, it managed to basically break even (GLD was up around 13% but some of the other gold funds you mentioned earlier in this thread LOST from 5 to 15% between the July 7 temporary market high and the bottom-which for gold funds came roughly around the 8th of August so far; even if you look at FEGIX from its recent high on July 18th to the August 8th lows it was only down around 6%...the Rydex and Vanguard PM funds managed to lose 15% in the same timeframe, Tocqueville Gold lost about 10%, and USAA Gold lost about 9%).

Obviously GLD or real gold bullion would be better and "purer" to what Harry Browne intended but those unfortunately aren't available in her 401K...go ahead and run the correlation numbers for the above fund and see what they come to.

[AdamA]

Advising my friend on 401k lemonade.

She has a "Self-Directed Brokerage Account" option on her account.

Not so great news though. What is highly bogus: A SDBA is for knowledgeable investors who understand the
risks and costs associated with mutual fund investments.
You will not be able to invest in individual securities, such as
stocks, bonds exchange traded funds (EFTs) or options."

Have you thought of simply recommending PRPFX to your friend?

[cabronjames]

Advising my friend on 401k lemonade.

She has a "Self-Directed Brokerage Account" option on her account.

Not so great news though. What is highly bogus: A SDBA is for knowledgeable investors who understand the
risks and costs associated with mutual fund investments.
You will not be able to invest in individual securities, such as
stocks, bonds exchange traded funds (EFTs) or options."

Have you thought of simply recommending PRPFX to your friend?

No.  Thanks Adam, that's a good idea.

1 idea would be to pair the 401k Vanguard stock index fund, & cash (stable value fund - mediocre yet feasible substitution for SHY) against individual non-work VBS Roth IRA account with gold (SGOL) & bond (EDV).  If there is "excess" amount of stock & cash to balance the SGOL & EDV -  sell the excess stock & cash, & buy PRPFX.  In this way there would be 2 versions of the Permanent Portfolio, with the idea to minimize the PRPFX version overtime via contributing the max $5K per year (or as much as possible) to the VBS Roth IRA account.

[cabronjames]

There are a few of them out there:

https://news.fidelity.com/news/article. ... tual-funds

Try those 4.  The returns may or may not be as good as GLD/SGOL/IAU, but at least it gives you some gold exposure.

Thx for the link Storm.

Aren't these funds primarily a gold miner industry stock active fund?  I doubt that could be acceptable for the gold allocation.  What if stock markets in general crash, with the PE10 going back to historical median, while gold bullion keeps rising?

EDIT: I ran this fund list (BGEIX FSAGX GOLDX RYPMX) vs GLD (the gold bullion ETF with the most price history, & the mutual funds have more history than GLD).  The time period is 2004-11-18 to 2011-08-15.  The correlations are not very strong: 0.72 - 0.75.

EDIT2: I looked at the trailing 1 yr & 5 yr performance of GLD v these 4 gold industry stock mutual funds: BGEIX FSAGX GOLDX RYPMX .  These gold stock mutual funds trailed horribly the gold bullion ETF.

Ticker, 1yr, 5yr
GLD, 49.46%, 194.81%
BGEIX, 7.46%, 34.14%
FSAGX, 7.09%, 45.85%
GOLDX, 6.05%, 38.46%
RYPMX, 19.19%, 47.17%

My conclusion: PRPFX (which is available in the 401k via "Self Directed Brokerage Acocunt" is superior
to
doing a DIY 4X25 HBPP, that uses a gold industry stock mutual fund (due to lack of a better choice in the 401k) as the "gold" allocation.