The following was published at the investment website earlier this month. Only a few minor edits have been made below and part two will appear here tomorrow.

It's been about nine months since the gold and silver ETFs were examined in comparison to spot prices and prices paid at coin shops (see Volume II, Issue 43) and this week's update seemed to be as good a time as any to have another look. This has always been an important subject to me because I've owned precious metals in various forms for many years now and, since I plan to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, I'm always interested in minimizing expenses.

There will come a day when I'll want to sell just about everything I've got, but that day is very far off.

For some time now, I've been expecting to see a meaningful separation between the gold and silver ETF prices and other bullion prices and you can now clearly see that happening in the charts below.

The significance of this separation will vary for each individual as this is just one part of the equation when it comes to deciding how you want to own precious metals. There are many other factors to consider as discussed in January of this year when the Buying Bullion article was revisited (see Volume III, Issue 5) and I continue to favor holding the physical metal up until storage issues become a problem. The convenience of the ETFs, however, make them attractive choices as well.

As I recall, the last time I did this, the gold and silver ETFs were sort of tacked on to the end of a review for all commodity ETFs in the model portfolio and maybe didn't receive the attention they warranted.