Gold Stock, Zinc Stock

Terry Says

Well, as of this writing gold is trading around $1210 an ounce.  It is a precious metal.  Zinc is more of an industrial metal.  It is trading at about $1.25 per pound. There are many publicly traded gold companies, and I would suggest you stick to a mutual fund to buy shares in mining companies, spreading your risk.  One such fund is the US Global Investors Gold and Precious Metals funds (www.USFunds.com).  (Full disclosure, I have owned this fund for many years.) Or you could buy a NYSE listed stock that trades exactly on the price of gold.  The symbol is GLD.  Do your homework as this can be a volatile stock, depending as it does on the price of gold. Probably the best known Zinc stock is Canadian Zinc, traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the over-the-counter market in the US.  Again this is a wildly speculative stock, so do your homework.  There are no "pure play" zinc ETFs, but several industrial metals ETFs include zinc.  Read this article about investing in Zinc before going further. In general, you should understand the difference between industrial metals and gold -- which is basically considered a hedge against currency devaluation.