Standard Life Teams Up With GoldMoney

For someone who's been lumped in with the gold nuts, James Turk certainly has arrived. His company, GoldMoney, has cut a deal with Standard Life to offer an option for self-directed pension plan holders to buy gold through GoldMoney for their retirement.

Standard is offering its 100,000 self-invested personal pension (Sipp) clients the ability to invest directly in gold bullion, in association with GoldMoney, one of the world’s largest holders of physical bullion for retail investors.

Clients will be offered “online access to GoldMoney’s website 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where they will be able to buy and sell gold bullion”, says Standard’s release.

“Customers can buy or sell a total of 2000 grams of gold in one business day and receive it at a confirmed price.”

The spot price on offer is based on the trading prices from the London Bullion Market Association, and the bullion purchased is held “in a secure vault in London”.

The fees include a 1.92% charge for purchases of up to £600,000 (then 1.04%), in addition to an annual storage fee of 0.15%....

Included in the article is a warning from a UK investment dealer about excited buyers getting in at the top of the market.

In the short term, that advisor has a point. The throng of Germans who got into gold at the height of the Eurocrisis last year did get in near an intermediate-term high. Over the longer term, though, they've done well. That peak is well below today's price, and was below even the panic low of last January 27th.

There's no sign of the long-term gold bull market coming to an end. Any excited buyers may end up with a short-term loss, but until the bull cracks they'll gain over time.