Sunday, June 15, 2008

Buying gold bullion online

Buying gold bullion online
More and more investors in the US and Europe are turning
from the securities of shares and currency to a more solid
investment, privately owned gold bullion. Buy gold though,
is not as easy as one might think and securing it prevents
more of a challenge.

The ways most people buy gold are in the form of physical
gold coins like the American gold eagle or the Canadian
coins, there are gold mining shares and mutual funds and
there are certificates where you can buy gold but what I
want to talk about here is owning it directly and not
through intermediaries, in the form of gold bars.

Research today indicates that about 1,000 people a day are
searching the internet for ways to buy gold. There are two
big trends that have been found and the first which is
common to all the trends is a lack of trust in major
currencies, in particular the Euro and the Dollar
respectively and so people are adamant to have physical
gold stored securely within a vault.

Physical bullion trading cost have come down in recent
times because for a long time the bars of bullion have
always been to large for the average private investors and
in the professional bullion market it is required that each
bar has a history for right at the time it was manufactured
into a bar and that they have always been stored within a
vault. When a private investor takes a small bar out from
the vault into a private storage place, it immediately
loses its integrity and in turn devalues it by somewhere
between 3-5% compared to the professional bars on the
market.

Now with the aid of the internet, retail buyers and sellers
can cut out the middle man and meet up directly cutting the
costs down. This method is appealing to a lot of investors
as they know exactly how much they own and are comfortable
that they feel in control. Some people might want to hold
the physical coins still but as I said, this devalues the
gold by a few percent and holding it in a safe storage on a
permanent basis is the most secure method.

Within the UK, a company called "bullion vault" use Brinks
allied for safe keeping and with a company like Brinks
holding your investment; you can be assured that your
investment is safe. This method of buy online is very
liquid and the gold you bought one day can be sold over the
internet just as quickly. In this fast paced world, real
spending power with real currency such as gold can prove
useful for years to come.

When it comes down to it, gold is the ultimate security
investment. As seen with its recent growth from early 2006
to 2008, it can't be over looked when it comes to building
and investment portfolio. Investment and financial analysts
agree that between 15 - 20% of investments should consist
of the most hard of all assets, precious gold bullion.


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If you are interested in the prospect of investing in gold
bullion then you can visit my web site at
http://www.wheretobuy-gold.com and find plenty of
information on gold bullion and e-gold accounts. My blog at
http://howtobuy-gold.blogspot.com/ has an RSS feed so you
can get my most recent articles posted to your email or
website.
Thank you for reading this article.

Is Bankruptcy A Good Way To Handle Debt Problems

Is Bankruptcy A Good Way To Handle Debt Problems
You may think that your debt situation keeps getting worse
no matter what you try to improve it. You might think you
are running out of options and that declaring bankruptcy
may be your only choice. If this is what you are feeling,
you should wait to consider what the consequences may be.
Filing bankruptcy can leave some very adverse effects on
your credit and your ability to obtain financial assistance
if you need it.

The expert advice of financial advisers is that bankruptcy
should not be used unless it is absolutely necessary.
Lawyers that deal with these situations also agree that
this is true. If you have a huge amount of high interest
credit card debt and can't make your mortgage payments or
if your car is about to be repossessed or the electricity
is going to be disconnected, and you can't pay any of these
bills, you may want to consider bankruptcy.

If these extreme measures must be made to resolve your
debt, you need to seriously examine your finances and find
how you ended up in this massive debt.

For most consumers the problem is mismanagement of
finances. They are spending far beyond their means to pay
and failing to pay bills on time and this leads to late
fees and troubles with creditors. Debt can also be the
result of unforeseen things in life, such as the loss of
employment or illness which leads to high medical bills.
The unexpected loss of a loved one can send our finances
into a downward spiral that is hard to recover from. These
types of circumstances are the more common ones associated
with bankruptcy.

Some people seem to think that bankruptcy is a perfect
solution to all of life's problems. They think that
bankruptcy can be used to take away all the debt with no
lasting consequences. The bankruptcy laws have been
changed to cut down on the people who thought they could
wipe out their debt so it is not so easy to qualify for
bankruptcy. You have to pass a strict application process
and then you have to wait for the judge's decree to give
you the debt relief you requested.

A consequence of declaring bankruptcy is that your credit
rating will be adversely affected for as long as ten years
in most cases. This can be a detriment to you if you want
to seek financing on loans at a later time. Lenders will
certainly use your credit history to help them determine if
you are a suitable loan candidate. Your credit score is
very influential when you want to buy a new car or finance
a mortgage.

You need to do a lot of research on the options available
to you if you believe that the only one is bankruptcy.
Financial advisors and bankruptcy lawyers can recommend the
best thing for you in your particular circumstances. Try
to locate someone who has gone through it and ask him or
her about his or her experiences with bankruptcy. Don't
make a hasty decision about this drastic move while there
may be more acceptable ways to alleviate your debt.


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Alisdair Fawcett has been writing on personal finance
topics for many years and you can find more of his debt
related articles at the debt help and consolidation sites,
http://www.tfgi.com and
http://www.rebuild.org/debt-consolidation.html