"Bartender, I’ll Have The Gold ETF — And Make It A Double!"

by admin on August 3rd, 2009

Friday I established a new portfolio position — gold in the form of the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD). And it accounts for just over 10% of the portfolio. That’s twice the normal 4% to 5% position I usually devote to new buys.

Long-time readers know I bought gold earlier this decade, before launching Controlled Greed. That was when gold was around $270 and my vehicle was the Central Fund of Canada (CEF), the closed-end fund holding gold and silver bullion, which was then trading at a discount. CEF would have been my buy this time, but it trades at a premium. So I went with the gold ETF.

I paid $91.89 and it ended the day at $93.35.

I’m torn about gold as part of an investment portfolio. Two people I admire greatly, the late John Templeton and Seth Klarman, have never been big on gold, or not for the most part. I’m sure Sir John owned mining stocks at times, even gold ones, but I’ve never read any comments from him liking the metal itself. In fact, he once said it just sits there and doesn’t pay any dividends. Klarman said a while back that gold tied up (read more)