Franklin Gold and Precious Metals (FKRCX)

DeafPalmdale

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Dec 2, 2007
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212
Hello,

I asked my finanical advisor about purchasing some gold and he suggested me to use Franklin Gold and Precious Metals (FKRCX). Do you think it is a good idea? I like to have some gold for my $9000. Thanks.
 
Those sound like EFTs. Promises on Gold and Silver far exceed actual supplies. Your best bet is to pay cash and retain possession of the actual Gold (or Silver... which seems to be more stable). Many people would advise to invest in a heavy duty safe to store the bullion.

I think I prefer the Safety Deposit box method. I realize that in hard times I may not be able to get anything out of my box but I would imagine that the bank would prevent people from actually withdrawing money before they prevent people from obtaining the items in their safety deposit boxes. Whenever that happens.. then I'll go get my coins.
 
FUND SUMMARY The investment seeks capital appreciation; current income is a secondary consideration. The fund normally invests at least 80% of net assets in securities of gold and precious metals operation companies. It generally invests more than 50% of total assets in companies located outside the U.S.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=FKRCX
This fund is large and has been around since 1969, so it's no fly-by-night thing. As far as I can tell, it doesn't invest in the metals themselves. If I understand the quote above, it invests in mining companies.

A Morningstar rating of 4 out of 5 is better than some of the funds I'm in, but you need to decide about that on your own.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FKRCX&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
Look at the graph 1985-present. Be prepared for it to have some downturns that last years (1996-1999 and others).
 
About this Mutual Fund
The investment seeks capital appreciation; current income is a secondary consideration. The fund normally invests at least 80% of net assets in securities of gold and precious metals operation companies. It generally invests more than 50% of total assets in companies located outside the U.S.



Based on historical Agriculture prices, investing in the actual commoditty will give you a return roughly around 3 times that of investing in companies that make and produce equipment, seed, anything to do with agriculutre.


So in other words, you will make more money by buying physical gold rather than companies that make gold, or make equipment for the gold industry.

Granted, with simply investing in companies, you dont have to store it, or protect it.

There are companies out there that allow you to buy gold like a stock, basically they hold it for you... can't remember any of them, but that's the better play.


I do think that although buying gold is a great way to protect your assets, it will not make you rich... it will simply buy the same amount of stuff it buy today.


For example:
9000.00 in Gold buys a Toyota Camry ( not sure, just an example )

in 10 years, that same gold will only buy you a Toyota Camry, the gold will be worth 40,000.00 by then, but the car will cost that as well...

You can profit in gold in the short term, as a long term strategy, all it does is stays with inflation.


Remember, a 100 years ago, the same gold buys the same oil of today... it doesn't get you MORE oil, just the same.... no growth, yet no loss either... Just depends on what your objective is...


IF you are trying to preserve your asset, good... if you are trying to make your money grow, bad... plus if your house burns down, you lose your gold potentially... robbery, ect...


With all that said, if you want to try and profit in a long term strategy on the price of gold, then investing in a fund that collects gold production companies is smart...

You might want to look into Prosper.com or LendingClub.com - and Become the banker.

I lend out money at interest rates on average of 13% ammoritized over 3 years.
As an example, 325.00 over 3 years will return you 400.00.

There is still risk, people can default, but you can really spread your risk by only lending in 25.00 chunks...

If you can't beat em... Join em.

Oh yeah, and P.S. This kind of social lending is what is going to save our country, breaking away from the Big banks and their financial trickery, and back to the people at fair smart rates. Social lending offers better rates, and gives back better returns than CDs...

Plus on that 325 I lent out, I get paid 10.95 a month in return, instead of having to wait a year to sell a stock for a 13% return... I get it paid back to me slowly over the 3 years...

Then you can take that money, and re-lend it out and make interest on the interest and compound the compounding interest... just like the Fed baby! :)
 
Personally, I opted for Goldmoney only because I didn't want the hassle of buying and physically holding gold on hand, and believe I can get better rates with them than if I went to my local dealer.

Goldmoney differs from ETF in that they claim that they maintain a 1:1 correspondence between the amount of gold in the vault and the number in your balance sheet and you are the sole owner of that gold, though you pay them for the vault storage. Of course, I can't guarantee that just because they say so, it is actually so.

It's in UK, so this acts as a hedge against bad times, but is not a guarantee, and for all I know, it could get taken down by similar guys who took down the Liberty Dollars, but this is risk I'm willing to tolerate.

As said before, you need to make decide about what risks you are willing to tolerate in order to hold gold and in what form.
 
Personally, I opted for Goldmoney only because I didn't want the hassle of buying and physically holding gold on hand, and believe I can get better rates with them than if I went to my local dealer.

Goldmoney differs from ETF in that they claim that they maintain a 1:1 correspondence between the amount of gold in the vault and the number in your balance sheet and you are the sole owner of that gold, though you pay them for the vault storage. Of course, I can't guarantee that just because they say so, it is actually so.

It's in UK, so this acts as a hedge against bad times, but is not a guarantee, and for all I know, it could get taken down by similar guys who took down the Liberty Dollars, but this is risk I'm willing to tolerate.

As said before, you need to make decide about what risks you are willing to tolerate in order to hold gold and in what form.

Is it insured by anything, I simply wonder if someone "knocks off their vault", they are stealing your gold... not the companies... is there any protection for you?
 
They say it's insured. You can read their guarantee. I took it for their word mainly because they said they would keep detailed record and keep me in the loop.

The problem with Liberty Dollars, however, was that even if it was insured (I don't know for sure if they had insurance, but would assume they had), the gold was confiscated by IRS and therefore not claimable for insurance payout.

So, if there was a bank robbery, I'm okay but not if UK's version of IRS decides to do same to Goldmoney what our IRS did to Liberty Dollars. Now, they also have a vault in Zurich, Switzerland, so you can hedge your bets between two vaults.

This is all based on risk that I take that UK or Switzerland wouldn't do what IRS in US did to Liberty Dollars, and that there's stronger privacy laws over there. They don't bother to tell IRS anything so IRS can't know how much you have (though they will find out by following the money transferred out of your US bank account).
 
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