Any precious metal experts here? The experienced trader above says to buy physical gold only. Now I'm aware of some of the arguments on the dangers of everything else besides physical. Gold futures don't have actual metal backing them; your futures contract depends on the survival of the exchange. Indeed in 1980 silver had an incident where certain members of the exchange were short silver without having the silver, thus the rules were changed at the peak of the market to ensure their own survival. Paper gold (GLD) is backed by physical bullion, but some analysts think there is danger of rehypothecation. However, GLD is owned by huge hedge funds. Mandel, Soros, Paulson, Cooperman, Loeb, and more. http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?symbol=GLD I think it's almost impossible that anything would happen where your GLD shares would become worthless or shrink in value, especially with ownership by such prominent investors.