David / Eoin 

I trust you are both well. Thank you very much for an excellent and insightful service. 

I should appreciate your assistance.  What in your view is the best way to hold gold, in the UK, for the medium to longer term other than physically or on IG Index? Your insight into this would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

David Fuller's view

Thanks for your kind words and a question of general interest.

I would rephrase the question slightly: What is the best way to hold gold for you?  I raise this because subscribers will have different risk tolerances and objectives. 

Personally, if I just wanted to hold gold as a financial asset with no counterparty liability, I would purchase bullion.

If I wanted to buy gold or other precious metals because they were arguably cheap and beginning to recover, as I have done this year, I will use futures purchased on IG Index, and keep the leverage conservative.  I will probably continue to do this while precious metals remain in overall upward trends.  The big advantage of spread-bets in the UK and perhaps several other countries, is that there is no capital gains tax on profits.  However, this is a symmetrical situation in that spread-bet losses cannot be used to offset capital gains taxes on other profits. 

Gold shares or funds produce the best gains when gold is trending higher, but I would not hold them for the longer term.  Gold shares are highly speculative and often wasting assets, and underperform when the metal is not appreciating.