What scares me from investing in gold.

[headingnorth]

I was in Costco the other day and was tempted to buy gold bars they were selling to diversify my portfolio.
I have never bought gold as an investment before and it would be super easy and convenient to get it from my local Costco.

For those who don't know Costco is a very popular supermarket in the US that sells everything from grocery to consumer electronics.

Two things made me change my mind.

1) I asked the salesperson will Costco buy gold back when I want to cash in and sell it? He said no Costco only sells but won't buy it back.
So buying gold from Costco would be super easy and convenient but when you want to sell it Costco says good luck you are on your own.

2) Costco charges a 2% fee over the spot price which is two to ten times what most crypto exchanges charge you to buy and sell bitcoin.

I read a couple articles on the internet about how to sell gold and it seems a rather complicated and expensive process to do.
Where do you even go to sell your gold besides a pawn shop (who will give you only half of what its worth if you're lucky)?

Do you have to ship it to the buyer? Is escrow involved?



How to sell gold without getting scammed.
November 10, 2023

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-prices-how-to-sell-your-gold/

[1714997780]

1714997780

[Ambatman]

If you interested in having gold why not invest on a gold ETF
Physical gold is not worth the risk and with it's high price Now and difficulty in selling at market price
I don't see it been profitable
Gold rise lower than other stocks and buying at $2K doesn't mean you can sell at said amount but most likely lower.
Not to mention physical Gold can be stolen.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

1) I asked the salesperson will Costco buy gold back when I want to cash in and sell it? He said no Costco only sells but won't buy it back.
So buying gold from Costco would be super easy and convenient but when you want to sell it Costco says good luck you are on your own.

One quality of an asset is it's ability to be easily bought and sold at anything, and as such, by virtue that Costco do not buy this gold bar back when you want to sell is enough reason to discourage anyone from investing in it, because unlike Bitcoin which is a digital asset that could be easily bought and sold at anything, without stress, that alone is enough reason to encourage more people to prefer it as an investment asset far better than gold. So on that note, I will strictly advise you invest in Bitcoin, because just as we just saw it's 4th halving, I'm sure it has a great potential currently of skyrocketing in next 6 months to a year from now.

[headingnorth]

Now that you mention it gold ETF is something I may consider.

1) I asked the salesperson will Costco buy gold back when I want to cash in and sell it? He said no Costco only sells but won't buy it back.
So buying gold from Costco would be super easy and convenient but when you want to sell it Costco says good luck you are on your own.

One quality of an asset is it's ability to be easily bought and sold at anything, and as such, by virtue that Costco do not buy this gold bar back when you want to sell is enough reason to discourage anyone from investing in it, because unlike Bitcoin which is a digital asset that could be easily bought and sold at anything, without stress, that alone is enough reason to encourage more people to prefer it as an investment asset far better than gold. So on that note, I will strictly advise you invest in Bitcoin, because just as we just saw it's 4th halving, I'm sure it has a great potential currently of skyrocketing in next 6 months to a year from now.

About 70% of my investment portfolio is in bitcoin and will probably never be less than that.
I recently sold some of my non-crypto holdings and thinking about reallocating some of it into gold.

[Despairo]

I haven't heard a place only sell gold, but they didn't want to buy gold from the customers.

Your second point is correct, they will charge fees when you want to sell your gold and they also value your gold lower than the actual price due to your gold is old. I mean, I invest in gold because I want to protect my wealth, so I will hold it for long term, but new and old gold has a different price lol.

Now that you mention it gold ETF is something I may consider.

Most people choose to own digital gold or gold ETFs, but it just not as safe as the tangible asset.

Do you have to ship it to the buyer? Is escrow involved?

I didn't own a lot, paying middleman would be costly.

[Hatchy]

Gold is a good investment, but yes that’s again regulated by the government. They just keep on impose tax on it, for which it’s really hard to make good profit from it. Be it physical gold or digital gold, government won’t spare you from paying the taxes. For this reason many have opt out from investing in Gold, they are purely focused on Bitcoins investment for which they are able to make good profits in a decentralised manner.

Yea was a good investment in the past. We are in the days were everything is going digital and most people prefers this compared to physical assets. Government controls almost everything physically owned assets giving the investors less space to breath. Though like you said digital or physical gold are still controlled by the government, it's more reason why people won't want to invest in gold.

Again, if we look at gold market for like 10 years graph compare to that of Bitcoin over same period, you will notice that it's percentage gain isn't even worth it. (Though the image below might be an old estimate but it's current value is still not worth it)



So why go over the stress of investing in something that is more stable but it value seize to be profitable over the years. I'll just stick with Bitcoin even with it's volatile nature. If one is able to hold for a long period of time, no matter how dip the !markets goes it will get back on it's legs.

[Ayers]

Gold is a good investment, but yes that’s again regulated by the government. They just keep on impose tax on it, for which it’s really hard to make good profit from it. Be it physical gold or digital gold, government won’t spare you from paying the taxes. For this reason many have opt out from investing in Gold, they are purely focused on Bitcoins investment for which they are able to make good profits in a decentralised manner.

According to you, you are encouraging people to use bitcoin to avoid taxes and bitcoin is an effective tax evasion tool, right? Just looking at what you said, it's easy to understand why many governments hate bitcoin so much. Because if they let people freely use bitcoin and avoid taxes, sooner or later your national economy will collapse. If all bitcoin investors have the mindset of using bitcoin to avoid taxes and avoid the government, then don't expect bitcoin to become popular. We are hindering the popularity of bitcoin. Additionally, you are also implicitly asserting that Satoshi created bitcoin to help people avoid taxes.

[joeperry]

I didn't know that gold was hard to sell. All I know is just go to pawn shops and sell it, I think it's still easy to just invest in ETFs though it would be hard for some people as it's too challenging for them compared to just buying and selling physical golds. For me, I would still prefer investing to cryptocurrency, luckily I managed to get myself curious stick to cryptocurrency.

Other than that, as per the OP the transaction is really expensive, I wouldn't dare to  trade with a 2% fee. I was wondering if this is only in Costco or also in other part of the world.

[The Hidebehinder]

I didn't know that gold was hard to sell. All I know is just go to pawn shops and sell it,

You will not get the real price of gold at any pawn shop, in case of most jewellery you will get at maximum 70-80% of what that thing is worth at current prices, really good stores will get you around 90% of the price for a fully legit gold bar but no way you're going to get this at any corner shop, they need to make a profit too and hedge against price fluctuations.

If you interested in having gold why not invest on a gold ETF

Not your keys not your gold!

[Crypt0Gore]

Some small time armed robbers came to raid a small area in my town yesterday, I bet if anyone of them is holding gold in the house the robbers will run away with the gold, this incident makes me think about how bad it is to hold something as valuable as gold at home.

If I have to invest my hard earned money into anything it will be something that's not physical, apart from land properties, it will never be something valuable and physical like gold.

Its not even safe, if someone know that you have something as valuable as gold at home they might plan to attack you, gold is a good investment, but it attracts bad things, you must not keep it close or move it when other attentions are present.

Where there is gold, blood flows.

[Casdinyard]

I was in Costco the other day and was tempted to buy gold bars they were selling to diversify my portfolio.
I have never bought gold as an investment before and it would be super easy and convenient to get it from my local Costco.

For those who don't know Costco is a very popular supermarket in the US that sells everything from grocery to consumer electronics.

Two things made me change my mind.

1) I asked the salesperson will Costco buy gold back when I want to cash in and sell it? He said no Costco only sells but won't buy it back.
So buying gold from Costco would be super easy and convenient but when you want to sell it Costco says good luck you are on your own.

2) Costco charges a 2% fee over the spot price which is two to ten times what most crypto exchanges charge you to buy and sell bitcoin.

I read a couple articles on the internet about how to sell gold and it seems a rather complicated and expensive process to do.
Where do you even go to sell your gold besides a pawn shop (who will give you only half of what its worth if you're lucky)?

Do you have to ship it to the buyer? Is escrow involved?



How to sell gold without getting scammed.
November 10, 2023

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-prices-how-to-sell-your-gold/

Stuff like these are the very reason why no one buys gold physically anymore besides jewelries and statement pieces. Everyone's willing to sell their shit, some even will be more than happy to sell it to you for under the market price, but no one's going to buy it from you. This doesn't just happen in CostCo by the by, as I tried pawning my gold bars back then in a local pawnshop here in the Philippines, all of them declining my offer as they either "don't have the tools to check for authenticity" even though it's not that much different from testing gold necklaces or whatever, or they don't have enough money to accommodate my offer.

I would highly suggest you go for ETFs instead as it still gives you the liberty of being able to invest in the gold market, but at the same time lose the risk of getting that shit stolen from you, and furthermore being able to sell your shit almost always instantly without issue. Only thing is that you're technically not buying gold, but are buying a deed that says you got this much gold, so when they lose their supply all you really have for yourself's a piece of paper, which isn't really a lot if I'm gonna be obviously honest.

Then again, safer than hoarding gold

[mindrust]

If you interested in having gold why not invest on a gold ETF
Physical gold is not worth the risk and with it's high price Now and difficulty in selling at market price
I don't see it been profitable
Gold rise lower than other stocks and buying at $2K doesn't mean you can sell at said amount but most likely lower.
Not to mention physical Gold can be stolen.

When you are investing in gold, only physical matters. Good luck getting your phys from paper gold assets during market turmoils. Yes it is hard to keep phys gold safe and you shouldn’t be buying it if that’s the case. Phys gold obviously has other problems too. It is hard to convert your phys gold back to USD and you get ripped of when you do it. People buy gold because when shit hits the fan, none of these problems will matter because when that happens, the only problem you’ll have will be not having enough of it and you need to have them in your possession. If you can’t lick it, you don’t own it.

[legendbtc]

The capitalization of the gold market is over 15 trillion and the capitalization of bitcoin is just over 1.3 trillion. I want to ask people (who think gold is harder to sell than bitcoin) which asset is more liquid?

There are more and more stories comparing gold and bitcoin, and what's even more interesting is that most jump in to support bitcoin and criticize gold. But that's not too surprising since we're on the bitcoin forum and we're all bitcoin investors. But in this way, by smearing gold and exaggerating about bitcoin, will bitcoin become more popular than gold through this route?

[topbitcoin]

To maintain wealth, gold is a good investment, because you can be sure the price will increase every year. Gold is an investment that I think is the safest, because the risk is very minimal. And if you intend to invest in gold, then the gold you buy should not be in the form of jewelry, but in the form of pure gold or gold bullion. Because if you buy gold in the form of jewelry, then when you resell the gold there will usually be a decrease in price on the grounds that there is slight damage or abrasions due to use which can reduce the weight of the gold.

But what the OP said is true, that there are several gold shops that are behaving "cheatingly" by no longer buying the gold they have sold to their customers. Apart from that, there is one more thing that often makes me quite annoyed with gold shops, where they often cheat the lower class who want to resell their gold, where the gold shop buys gold from its customers according to the previous price when the customer bought gold at the shop. , even though in that period of time, gold has experienced several price increases.

[shinratensei_]

I think there are easier more liquid way of investing into gold that is by using digital gold and what I mean by digital gold is literal gold just represented as a value digitally there are many digital investing companies that are legitimate offering this option I think, but yes investing in gold, directly, by holding the physical of gold in your hand might suffer from hard liquidating the asset, there are always cuts here and there simply because those companies that does buy and sell gold knows it very well that people are in for making money for future investment so they tried to be the middle man and make the most out of fee, therefore the many cuts that are enforced are literally everywhere that its such a huge turn off to cash it out when there's no significant margin even though sometime those of us who invested in gold just want to keep our money from being eaten up by inflation.

this is also why i'm so hesitant investing in gold, keeping gold alone is already such a hassle, cashing it out will just become more hassle, then i decided to put my investment into bitcoin for the sake of easy liquidity and just more convenient as an investment.

[Smilevictorobinna]

Buying Gold as a form of investment is not all safe because you will always sell it back lower the price you bought it, there is no chance of it yielding more profit for you like Bitcoin.
When you buy a gold for $5k and keep it for 10 years and then want to sell it back you will always sell it lower than the price you bought it you may sell it for $2k or $3k but when it comes to Bitcoin keeping it for that number of years will always make you more richer.

[cabron]

If you interested in having gold why not invest on a gold ETF
Physical gold is not worth the risk and with it's high price Now and difficulty in selling at market price
I don't see it been profitable
Gold rise lower than other stocks and buying at $2K doesn't mean you can sell at said amount but most likely lower.
Not to mention physical Gold can be stolen.

Having the physical gold is better than the ETF since you have it yourself. The ETFs can just be taken from you whenever they want. Physical gold is like having  BTC in your hardware wallet.

Yes, selling it to the back will be a problem though. I guess it's just meant to barter in times of hard recession. But what is more worth investing I think is collectible gold coins instead as they are going to be confiscated by the government in times they wanted to do it like they did in the 30s. 

Peter Schiff will argue that Gold is a better investment just as banks are buying gold. Moving it from one place to another is the problem with gold unlike BTC.

[kentrolla]

There are other ways but I am not sure how it works in western nations but in India there is something called Sovereign gold bonds I invest in that as you don't pay as making charges and it's safer since it's not a physical gold and also you may sell it when you want by transferring it into stocks and it's much cheaper than what you would end up paying the charges when you sell gold or other gold scheme. Check for government related schemes if it's there then good as it's a win-win situation.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

That's why it's always important to evaluate the risk involved in any kind of investment one is making. I know that gold is not really a very easy asset to control, like we do with Bitcoin. In one of my old posts, I mentioned that someone can actually store 100,000 bitcoins worth billions of dollars on their phone, and if they were walking on the street, you wouldn't know how much money that person was carrying, but the fact is that you cannot trade like that with physical gold. In fact, you have to even be careful about your movement when you are in possession of physical gold that is worth millions of dollars. @OP, I am not in the US, and like you said, you have already done some research about how to sell your gold there. If you find out that the investment is not going to be favorable for you, you can go for other investments, like stocks, real estate, or bonds, but that's if you don't want to invest in Bitcoin or you already have but want to diversify to other physical assets.

[peter0425]

For those who don't know Costco is a very popular supermarket in the US that sells everything from grocery to consumer electronics.

US supermarkets are so odd. They sell all different kinds of things there.

Gold is seen as such a valuable asset that you can never find it being sold in supermarkets or any store that doesn’t seem expensive or classy.

I read a couple articles on the internet about how to sell gold and it seems a rather complicated and expensive process to do.
Where do you even go to sell your gold besides a pawn shop (who will give you only half of what its worth if you're lucky)?

This is why even though many see gold as a valuable investment we can not deny how inconvenient it is to store gold and sell them unlike with crypto where in just a few clicks away you can buy and sell and you can do it at the comfort of your own house. It is one of the many advantages of crypto over gold.