Originally Posted by Houdini

Yes, I know physical sells more than paper, but it's % move is exactly the same with the stock. If physical goes down 5%, so will GLD go down 5%. Sometimes it might be +-.5%, but it's close. When you sell GLD though, you don't have to pay for the physical premiums. If you're going to trade, it doesn't make sense to trade physical.

Say the spot price is $1600, but you pay $75 over spot for physical, $1675. You end up paying 5% more. Then say you sell at $1725 spot price, you give up 2% ($34.5) to Apmex and actually sell it for $1690.50. You make a whopping $15.50 on a $125 price move! You could have just bought 10 shares of GLD at $160 and sold at $172.5 and made $125, 87% more!

You're right, physical itself is the value. The paper is worthless except for trading to buy more physical. Buy and hold until the dollar and the Euro go to shit.