rm2 spread thats all. eg, u buy at rm100, sell at rm98. trx takes as long as the teller keys in lo, usually about 5 - 10 mins

per gram. or if you have plenty of capital to invest, you can use the premier gold account. only rm1 spread per gram, but buy/sell in 1000 grams la. premier gold account ma

1. if you buy paper gold, most probably you already decided its for speculating and not for delivery. had you wanted physical in the first place, you'd buy physical n not paper

2. not sure abt other banks but i asked uob before and they advised if i want to take physical, i need to top up the price difference (1gm GIA vs. 1gm physical) and also RM150 conversion fees. So better to just liquidate the GIA and then use the cash to buy physical. same price difference but you dont need to pay that RM150 fees.

3. Now my opinion here is that although the bank dont have the physical gold, you can still get back your money. And if the bank dont have physical for sale, you can always run to the nearest poh kong/wah chan/etc with the money and buy

This post has been edited by bigwolf: Nov 15 2011, 09:11 PM

2. wah, 1kg? they didn't tell me that so i don't know ler. but uob only selling 1oz sizes, why would they want 1kg then only convert? weird...

3. yup price spread is definitely more expensive outside than the bank coz bank is selling the physical gold at close to spot rate. thats why uob always out of stock

my point is there's not much difference if u buy paper vs. physical gold as you can convert paper gold to physical anytime either via sell-paper-then-buy-physical from the bank or take the money n go to the nearest goldsmith shop

3. yup thats true. if you had wanted to buy physical gold in the first place, you wont be able to get them at rm170 anyways. you can only get rm170 in paper gold.

i'm highlighting this for the discussions on pro's & cons of physical vs. paper gold. many believe physical gold offers capital security and is easy to liquidate but i'd say paper gold is just as easy to liquidate and secure:

1. same pricing mechanism. a simple example: if you buy 1gm of physical gold for rm200 and spot price goes up rm10, and you sell for rm210, you untung rm10. with paper gold, if you buy at rm170 and spot price goes up the same rm10, and you sell at rm180, you still untung rm10

2. if you buy 1gm of paper gold and if you want to convert it to physical, for sure you must top up the difference (rm200 - rm170 = rm30) + another rm150 conversion fees. thats why the staff there told me might as well sell it and buy the physical with just the top-up. you save the conversion fees. but if the bank don't have physicals, you can always take the money and go to a goldsmith shop to buy physical. point is, if you wanted to buy gold, but if the bank does not have physical all these while, you still have to buy from goldsmith shop in the very first place.

3. what if risk of bank collapse? well, you can just sell the paper gold and credit back into your savings/current account and withdraw from there

4. shtf and you need to run? as per item 2. take it out and run to the nearest goldsmith shop to buy physicals and keep running lah. i dont think you'll be much concerned by the price difference between goldsmith price vs bank's physical price by then

ofc, if the day comes when the price of physicals starts to disconnect from spot & paper (no more item 1), then i'll be the first to liquidate my paper gold and buys physical. otherwise rugi oh if later 1gm of paper gold says rm170 but 1gm of physical gold sells for rm400

aiyaaa i was doing a simple example only la ok lah, don't say rm10 appreciation. assume you buy physical for rm200 & buyback is rm 170, while paper gold buy = rm170 & buyback = RM168

1 year from now, say spot price appreciates rm100. if you sell your physical at rm270 = untung rm70. if sell paper at rm268 = untung rm98. rm28 difference

if spot price appreciates rm200, sell physical at rm 370 = untung rm170. sell paper at rm368 = untung rm198. rm28 difference also.

ofc this is just a simple calculation, the real thing is a bit more complicated lah but i'm just highlighting basically there is not much difference in the pricing mechanism between paper gold & physical gold since you buy/sell paper with paper price and buy/sell physical with physical price (too bad we can't buy at paper price and sell at physical price )

Its precisely these kind of comments that these threads lose interest fast. Btw, you CAN give some education yourself instead of complaining you know...

Bro, UOB was ranked as the world's 32nd safest bank in 2010 and 26th in 2011. Maybank & Public Bank are not even in the list.

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/best-banks/1134...l#axzz1g7geUU9r

I think I can safely say our Malaysian economy is already dead if we ever see UOB collapse

heyyy quinn, so nice to see you again