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

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

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 

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 

paper gold is better and more efficient.
1. if you intend to trade, meaning to said, you will enter and exit the market (buy low, sell high) at various time (3-6 mths or less in between buy and sell).
2. you intend to have fiat money at the end of the day.
all these are true so long that COMEX gold did not default.

Physical gold is better if you intend to keep for long2 time (> 2 yrs) and other than thief or lost due to misplacement there is no other risk.

i think we belong to different school of thought.! 
Option 1: For the reason of fear, trust, convenience, leave the money in financial system : fiat, stock, equity:- it will get indirectly stolen by ruling class over time.

Option 2:- get the money out from ruling class control:- get stored value $ in precious metal and store it aside. I take my chance.

given to choice, I take the bolded risk. Opt 2. for the rest of you, it up to U 2 decide.

purity : buy small size 1 oz or less. Pay the premium, don;t be greed.

Gold is tougher than money.thats it.

I'm here just to share my view:-

If you read book "Crash Proof" by Peter Sciff , you will understand that the way they fix the system in 2008 is by printing more money - devalue fiat currency. (Which is clearly legally stealing wealth of others). Basically our money / purchasing power got stolen. And nobody cares. but I care.

That is why having physical is important. If you're afraid that you lost your gold, then think of how to reduce the risk.

True story. I got reletives that has gold from great grandma which is more than 80++ years... and those central bankers can't steal the buying power... 

Cheers.

if cherroy using overvalue housing price to compare with something undervalue, yes of course 2kg of gold nowadays cant buy a house. But overvalue property will get back to its own value once the market crash. If today US dollar back to gold standard, i believe 2kg is enough to get a house.

if usd strengthen and gold drop... how will it effecting our gold price?

there's alot reason for the gold price up n down. You dont need to worry so much if you holding the real gold on your hand, unless you holding a gold saving bank book with numbers inside

its hard for me to explain, you can buy bank book gold to earn money and thats your reason why u want to buy gold. For me, my view is gold and silver will be the currency in the future, but not really bringing gold and silver go shopping of course. I mean i predict that USD will collapse in the future, so do our currency will collapse too because most of the currencies backed by USD. When the time come, no matter how many thousand paper currency you have in bank, you cant buy anything because no people want to accept it. If you want know more about gold or silver, there is few videos you can find in youtube. Let me show you the american dream

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Added on November 18, 2011, 3:28 pm

you are correct from the above theory. What if bank facing bankruptcy? What is bank suddenly change their terms and cant withdraw physical gold? Bank has the rights to change anything without further notice. So im telling him what his purpose to buy gold. If he wants to generate some 'cash' then buy the paper gold, if he buy gold because he has the same thinking as me, then get the physical gold. No matter how, please do not borrow money to play with gold/silver, there is only 2 ending, either stay in heaven or go to hell.

How many countries are borrowing money to the US? When the USD collapse im pretty sure that the other countries unable to get back their money. Which country borrow the most to the US? Where did malaysian bank invest to? Im not talking about foreign exchange and of course i know foreign exchange works in pair.

Why did the US hold the physical gold instead of paper gold? They could save alot if they hold the paper gold and not building such a big vault, they could sell off all their gold to pay off some of their debts and purchase it back in the paper gold, why they didnt do it? Why recently many countries start to store physical gold? Why not diamond, diamond is more expensive than gold. Why not platinum??

guys i m new in this gold investment...need to ask something..

when i check the "gold live" link in the first page, it stated RM208 for 999 gold...how come can get RM177 @ UOB...izit the same range?

ic..i never know can purchase at discounted price..thx for the info..

i been asking this as i was approached by my friends husband which is doing gold investment, he explain the plan to me:
i) buy 100g of 999 gold with current market price RM20,800 (RM208 x 100)
ii) upon purchased, he will hand me the physical gold which i can verified at goldsmith shop for purity
iii) after 3 months, he will buy back the gold with profit margin of 7% (RM1456)

that's y i m still considering if i wanna buy from his plan or direct from bank....i did heard alot of scams about gold coins before...sorry if this is not the right thread to ask this    anyone can shed a light 

actually thats what i been wondering as well...i do google and found out that there is a company by the name of Genneva which offer similiar plan....FYI this company is :

CSG Fine Metal (http://www.csgfm.com.my/home.asp )
So-called sub-company of Caesar Gold (http://caesargold.com.my/)

i m thinking if the physical gold given to me is genuine, i still can keep it for future trade if the market grows (if the company run-away)...at the end of the day, is still risk....

they r selling at RCP RM208/g...i just finished reading another topic of discussion about Genneva which offer the similiar scheme....too much doubts and risks...hence i decided to pull off and start doing my survey to buying gold from banks, even maybe with lower return but with lower risks as well...better safe than sorry 

thx guys for all the useful reply 

stock people will alway buy paper. They will treat paper as good as  gold. at the end of the day they will cash out.
no point talking them out for physical.

everything you said is true
until
1. COMEX default.
2. Paper gold fraud.
3. Hyper inflation comes to picture like prior to WW2 in Germany.

If these 3 item did not come true or one cash out b4 it come true then paper gold is save lah.

Those who invest in physical gold they treat it as insurance as they believe that one of these will come true and they don;t want to get
stuck with paper gold which not convertable to physical. by the time they cash up, price of physical will bom bom up like no body business.

typically people buy gold as a safe heaven investment. when everything else is failing in the financial system, gold will be the ideal choice for people to park their money, it's safe. due to the fact that gold has been used as the backbone of monetary system for the past several thousand of years, the chances for gold to free fall like how share market did is very little.

if you look at the chart, history will tell u that gold has been rising slowly, steadily and consistently. it's one of the safest way to invest your currency (RM / USD/ etc) into real money that has real value. however due to recent years of economy stimulating packages from the west, gold has been rising rapidly and people would like to ride on the trend to reap some quick profit - as gold is no longer slow and steady but fast and steady.

right now, thanks to the west who has been printing money like crazy, the public uses gold and silver (real money) as a medium to store one's wealth. if one keeps his wealth in cash, the cash would very quickly drop in value. this is known as inflation. the fact is goods didn't rise in price (measure against real money), it's the paper money (cash / currency / RM / USD) has shrink in value, therefore we need more of paper currency to purchase the same amount of goods. if we use gold and silver (value) to measure against the goods, the price almost never change. 1 oz of gold (or silver) will still buy you the same amount of goods today and 1000 years ago.

gold has been used as the backbone of monetary system but it is very hard to use gold to trade in daily life. silver will be another form of real money that can be used.

i have hosted some really good video explaining the concept of gold, silver and paper currency by Mike Maloney, feel free to check them out at:
Videos - Silver in Malaysia

Gold is to preserve your wealth not for investment at first. 

1980 1ounce of gold cost USD 300, while a bowl of hawker mee, cost RM0.20
2011 1ounce of gold cost USD 1700, while a bowl of hawker mee, cost Rm4-5.

if we use gold and silver (value) to measure against the goods, the price almost never change. 1 oz of gold (or silver) will still buy you the same amount of goods today and 1000 years ago.

Are you refering to the the 1980 peak?

Are you saying now is equivalent to that peak?

If not, then its a flawed comparion.