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While gold, silver, and copper bullion can add diversification to your portfolio, there are some drawbacks to consider:
For copper, there’s the added challenge of:
So if an investor wants to avoid the risks and volatility of mining stocks, what’s an investor to do?Fortunately, there are commission-free ways of investing in bullion, with lots of liquidity.The way to accomplish this is by buying precious metal Exchange Traded Funds.The most popular one is the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), which actually owns gold bars. The fund has $62.8 billion in assets and an expense ratio of 0.40%. It is up 12.3% year-to-date.If you are looking for silver, there is the iShares Silver Trust (SLV). The trust has a net asset value of $12.9 billion and sports an expense ratio of 0.50%. The year-to-date return is almost double what GLD provided, generating 24.1%.As for copper, there is no ETF that owns copper bullion directly. That bullion would take up a huge amount of space. However, there is the United States Copper Index Fund (CPER), which has an objective of tracking the price of copper using copper futures.CPER is a very low cap ETF at $229 million and carries a relatively high expense ratio of 1.o4%. The year-to-date return is 15.5%.Most stock brokerage firms don’t charge a commission to invest in ETFs, making the precious metals ETFs a cost-effective way to trade or invest in bullion.So now you have a few options of getting into bullion with having to buy bars or coins directly.More By This Author:Investing In Comfort: Top Hotel Stocks For Your Portfolio
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