How can I invest in gold without taking physical possession?
You could buy shares of an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) based on the price of gold, like GLD, IAU, or SGOL. You can invest in this fund through almost any brokerage firm, e.g. Fidelity, Etrade, Scotttrade, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, ShareBuilder, etc. Keep in mind that you'll still have to pay a commission and fees when purchasing an ETF, but it will almost certainly be less than paying the markup or storage fees of buying the physical commodity directly. An ETF trades exactly like a stock, on an exchange, with a ticker symbol as noted above. The commission will apply the same as any stock trade, and the price will reflect some fraction of an ounce of gold, for the GLD, it started as .1oz, but fees have been applied over the years, so it's a bit less.  You could also invest in PHYS, which is a closed-end mutual fund that allows investors to trade their shares for 400-ounce gold bars. However, because the fund is closed-end, it may trade at a significant premium or discount compared to the actual price of gold for supply and demand reasons. Also, keep in mind that investing in gold will never be the same as depositing your money in the bank. In the United States, money stored in a bank is FDIC-insured up to $250,000, and there are several banks or financial institutions that deposit money in multiple banks to double or triple the effective insurance limit (Fidelity has an account like this, for example). If you invest in gold and the price plunges, you're left with the fair market value of that gold, not your original deposit.  Yes, you're hoping the price of your gold investment will increase to at least match inflation, but you're hoping, i.e. speculating, which isn't the same as depositing your money in an insured bank account. If you want to speculate and invest in something with the hope of outpacing inflation, you're likely better off investing in a low-cost index fund of inflation-protected securities (or the S&P500, over the long term) rather than gold.  Just to be clear, I'm using the laymen's definition of a speculator, which is someone who engages in risky financial transactions in an attempt to profit from short or medium term fluctuations This is similar to the definition used in some markets, e.g. futures, but in many cases, economists and places like the CFTC define speculators as anyone who doesn't have a position in the underlying security. For example, a farmer selling corn futures is a hedger, while the trading firm purchasing the contracts is a speculator. The trading firm doesn't necessarily have to be actively trading the contract in the short-run; they merely have no position in the underlying commodity. "In addition to the possibility of buying gold ETFs or tradable certificates, there are also firms specializing in providing ""bank accounts"" of sorts which are denominated in units of weight of precious metal. While these usually charge some fees, they do meet your criteria of being able to buy and sell precious metals without needing to store them yourself; also, these fees are likely lower than similar storage arranged by yourself. Depending on the specifics, they may also make buying small amounts practical (buying small amounts of physical precious metals usually comes with a large mark-up over the spot price, sometimes to the tune of a 50% or so immediate loss if you buy and then immediately sell). Do note that, as pointed out by John Bensin, buying gold gets you an amount of metal, the local currency value of which will vary over time, sometimes wildly, so it is not the same thing as depositing the original amount of money in a bank account. Since 2006, the price of an ounce (about 31.1 grams) of gold has gone from under $500 US to over $1800 US to under $1100 US. Few other investment classes are anywhere near this volatile. If you are interested in this type of service, you might want to check out BitGold (not the same thing at all as Bitcoin) or GoldMoney. (I am not affiliated with either.) Make sure to do your research thoroughly as these may or may not be covered by the same regulations as regular banks, particularly if you choose a company based outside of or a storage location outside of your own country."
Owning physical gold (assuming coins): Owning gold through a fund: "Invest in gold. Maybe will not ""make"" money but at least preserve the value." Without getting into whether you should invest in Gold or Not ... 1.Where do I go and make this purchase. I would like to get the best possible price. If you are talking about Physical Gold then Banks, Leading Jewelry store in your city. Other options are buying Gold Mutual Fund or ETF from leading fund houses. 2.How do I assure myself of quality. Is there some certificate of quality/purity? This is mostly on trust. Generally Banks and leading Jewelry stores will not sell of inferior purity. There are certain branded stores that give you certificate of authenticity 3.When I do choose to sell this commodity, when and where will I get the best cost? If you are talking about selling physical gold, Jewelry store is the only place. Banks do not buy back the gold they sold you. Jewelry stores will buy back any gold, however note there is a buy price and sell price. So if you buy 10 g and sell it back immediately you will not get the same price. If you have purchased Mutual Funds / ETF you can sell in the market. Reddit doesn't have a ton of resources to offer you as you learn about where to invest, you want to start reading up on actual investing sites.  You might start with Motley Fool, StockTwits, Seeking Alpha, Marketwatch, etc.     I agree with hipster's take, if all countries are going to keep printing money and expanding their debts and craziness, gold has a bright future.    Land, petroleum, commodities, and precious metals have an intrinsic worth that will still be there regardless of what currencies are doing,  versus bonds which are merely promises to pay, which will be paid off in devalued money, or stocks which are just promises of future earnings.     Think about spreading your risk in a few different places, one chunk here, one chunk there.   Some people in the US now are big on dividend paying stocks in lieu of bonds which only pay a percent, which is negative return after inflation.    Some people buy 'royalty trust' units, which throw off income from oil leases as dividends.   You might want to park a portion in a different currency, but dollar funds aren't going to pay interest and Switzerland plans to keep devaluing its currency as people keep bidding the price up.   I don't know if you are allowed to buy CEF, a bullion-backed fund out of Canada in your country, but that's one way to own gold &amp; silver.  But with the instability out there, you might prefer a bit of the real thing stashed in a safe place.  Or if you have a bit of family land, maybe just be sure you can pay the taxes to keep it; or pursue any other way to own 'real stuff' that will still be worth something after all hell breaks loose. "Two points:    One, yes -- the price of gold has been going up. [gold ETF chart here](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&amp;chdd=1&amp;chds=1&amp;chdv=1&amp;chvs=maximized&amp;chdeh=0&amp;chfdeh=0&amp;chdet=1349467200000&amp;chddm=495788&amp;chls=IntervalBasedLine&amp;q=NYSEARCA:IAU&amp;ntsp=0&amp;ei=PQhvUMjiAZGQ0QG5pQE)  Two, the US has confiscated gold in the past.  They did it in the 1930s.    Owning antique gold coins is stupid because you're paying for gold + the supply / demand imbalance forced upon that particular coin by the coin collector market.  If you want to have exposure to gold in your portfolio, the cheapest way is through an ETF.  If you want to own physical gold because a) it's shiny or b) you fear impending economic collapse -- you're probably better off with bullion from a reputable dealer.  You can buy it in grams or ounces -- you can also buy it in coins.  Physical gold will generally cost you a little more than the spot price (think 5% - 10%? -- not really sure) but it can vary wildly.  You might even be able to buy it for under the spot price if you find somebody that isn't very bright willing to sell.  Buyer beware though -- there are lots of shady folks in the ""we buy gold"" market." Best way would probably be to go buy gold or some other liquid item and then just sell it back for cash. Or buy items from stores and return them. Most stores that don't give store credit will give cash or put it on your CC. "The difficulty with investing in mining and gold company stocks is that they are subject to the same market forces as any other stocks, although they may whether those forces better in a crisis than other stocks do because they are related to gold, which has always been a ""flight to safety"" move for investors. Some investors buy physical gold, although you don't have to take actual delivery of the metal itself.  You can leave it with the broker-dealer you buy it from, much the way you don't have your broker send you stock certificates.  That way, if you leave the gold with the broker-dealer (someone reputable, of course, like APMEX or Monex) then you can sell it quickly if you choose, just like when you want to sell a stock. If you take delivery of a security (share certificate) or commodity (gold, oil, etc.) then before you can sell it, you have to return it to broker, which takes time.  The decision has much to do with your investing objectives and willingness to absorb risk.  The reason people choose mutual funds is because their money gets spread around a basket of stocks, so if one company in the fund takes a hit it doesn't wipe out their entire investment.  If you buy gold, you run the risk (low, in my opinion) of seeing big losses if, for some reason, gold prices plummet.  You're ""all in"" on one thing, which can be risky. It's a judgment call on your part, but that's my two cents' worth." "Since you are going to be experiencing a liquidity crisis that even owning physical gold wouldn't solve, may I suggest bitcoins? You will still be liquid and people anywhere will be able to trade it. This is different from precious metals, whereas even if you ""invested"" in gold you would waste considerable resources on storage, security and actually making it divisible for trade. You would be illiquid. Do note that the bitcoin currency is currently more volatile than a Greek government bond." "I got started by reading the following two books: You could probably get by with just the first of those two. I haven't been a big fan of the ""for dummies"" series in the past, but I found both of these were quite good, particularly for people who have little understanding of investing. I also rather like the site, Canadian Couch Potato. That has a wealth of information on passive investing using mutual funds and ETFs. It's a good next step after reading one or the other of the books above. In your specific case, you are investing for the fairly short term and your tolerance for risk seems to be quite low. Gold is a high-risk investment, and in my opinion is ill-suited to your investment goals. I'd say you are looking at a money market account (very low risk, low return) such as e.g. the TD Canadian Money Market fund (TDB164). You may also want to take a look at e.g. the TD Canadian Bond Index (TDB909) which is only slightly higher risk. However, for someone just starting out and without a whack of knowledge, I rather like pointing people at the ING Direct Streetwise Funds. They offer three options, balancing risk vs reward. You can fill in their online fund selector and it'll point you in the right direction. You can pay less by buying individual stock and bond funds through your bank (following e.g. one of the Canadian Couch Potato's model portfolios), but ING Direct makes things nice and simple, and is a good option for people who don't care to spend a lot of time on this. Note that I am not a financial adviser, and I have only a limited understanding of your needs. You may want to consult one, though you'll want to be careful when doing so to avoid just talking to a salesperson. Also, note that I am biased toward passive index investing. Other people may recommend that you invest in gold or real estate or specific stocks. I think that's a bad idea and believe I have the science to back this up, but I may be wrong." Redditors! Buy gold and demand that the financial institution who sold it deliver it. When they try to buy enough gold to cover their short the price will explode, free money.  Disclaimer: you all have to do it or it won't work "Getting ""physical stocks"" will in most cases only be for the ""fun of it"". Most stocks nowadays are registered electronically and thus the physical stock will be of no value - it will just be a certificate saying that you own X amount of shares in company X; but this information is at the same time registered electronically. Stocks are not like bearer bonds, the certificate itself contains no value and is registered to each individual/entity. Because the paper itself is worthless, stealing it will not affect your amount of stock with the company.  This is true for most stocks - there may exist companies who live in the 70s and do not keep track of their stock electronically, but I suspect it will only be very few (and most likely very small and illiquid companies)." I would track it using a regular asset account.  The same way I would track the value of a house, a car, or any other personal asset. ETA: If you want automatic tracking, you could set it up as a stock portfolio holding shares of the GLD ETF.  One share of GLD represents 1/10 ounce of gold.  So, if you have 5 ounces of gold, you would set that up in Quicken as 50 shares of GLD. gold is incredibly volatile, I tried spreadbetting on it.  During the month of its highest gain, month beginning to month end, I was betting it would go up - and I still managed to lose money. It went down so much, that my stop loss margin would kick in.   Don't do things with gold in the short term its a very small and liquid market. My advice with gold, actually buy some physical gold as insurance. "GLD, IAU, and SGOL are three different ETF's that you can invest in if you want to invest in gold without physically owning gold. Purchasing an ETF is just like purchasing a stock, so you're fine on that front.  Another alternative is to buy shares of companies that mine gold. An example of a single company is Randgold Resources (GOLD), and an ETF of mining companies is GDX. There are also some more complex alternatives like Exchange traded notes and futures contracts, but I wouldn't classify those for the ""regular person.""  Hope it helps!" You can also use ICS&lt;GO&gt; on Bloomberg and choose the right category (many subcategories, probably you'll start on home builders or something like that). If that doesn't work, press F1 twice and ask it to an analyst. I'm sure they have this info.