Ougnacious, there's plenty of stuff written by various analysts...

Ougnacious, there's plenty of stuff written by various analysts about ETFs on the internet. People are free to believe all, some or none of that.

That is their prerogative.

But as far as I am concerned the only ETF I would ever contemplate investing in MUST have trustees/managers who are not significantly short paper gold on Comex and London. For example, Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management. And it was significant imo that the IMF refused to sell him gold!

Just Google Sprott etf.

Personally I would run as fast as I can from any ETF which has trustees that are large paper gold shorts. But I guess that's just me.

As is patently obvious at this point in time, investors see no conflict of interest and are quite OK with large paper gold shorts being heavily involved with Gold ETFs.

Time will tell whether they were right or wrong.

I also take on board the points you have made about investing in gold equities. Yes. There is political risk and other risks such as incompetent Management and mining risks.