If the recent volatility in gold prices worries you and you don’t want to get involved in trading gold, but still want to potentially profit from it. A slightly safer alternative is to invest in Gold. It may seem difficult to invest in Gold, but it’s actually quite easy to buy gold online. In this guide, we explain the three different ways to invest in gold, their risks, and how to buy gold for your portfolio.
Best Brokers For Buying Gold Shares & ETFs in the UK
| Name | Logo | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Annual Fees | Dealing Commission | CTA | Feature | Expand |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees 0% - 0.25% |
Dealing Commission £3.50 - £5 |
See Offers Capital at risk
AJ Bell Reviews |
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AJ Bell Share Dealing ReviewProvider: AJ Bell Share Dealing Verdict: AJ Bell is a low-cost online investing platform and is the cheapest share dealing platform for buying and selling shares for the UK do-it-yourself (DIY) investor. They also offer plenty of investment ideas, including investment guides and equity research. Summary A great choice to deal shares with low costs in a variety of investment accounts.
Fees: AJ Bell share dealing account fees are capped at £3.50 a month. Dealing costs are £1.50 for funds and £5 for shares but drop to £3.50 when there were 10 or more online share deals in the previous month. Special Offers:
Pros
Cons
Overall4.2 |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees 0% - 0.45% |
Dealing Commission £5.95 - £11.95 |
See Offers Capital at risk
Hargreaves Lansdown Reviews |
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Expert Review Account: Hargreaves Lansdown Share Dealing Description: Hargreaves Lansdown offers access to the widest selection of stocks for share dealing accounts in the UK. The platform also has one of the best research portals for analysing stocks. Is it expensive to buy and sell shares on Hargreaves Lansdown? Hargreaves Lansdown is not as expensive as it used to be as there is no account charge for holding shares in a general investment account and a max of £3.75 in a stocks and shares ISA. HL does still cost more than competitors like AJ Bell and Interactive Brokers to buy and sell shares, but the account running costs can be lower because of the monthly cap. HL won the Best Stock Broker in our 2024, 2022 awards, and in 2021, it won Best Full-service Stockbroker for their all-round approach to customer service.. Another added bonus of dealing shares through HL is that their clients benefit from price improvements for best execution. HL say they reach out to multiple brokers to get the best prices for a trade and clients can make a saving of £18 per trade on average. This is particularly relevant if you are dealing with cap UK shares, which is where Hargreaves Lansdown excels. Overall, Hargreaves Lansdown is an excellent choice for most types of share dealing on UK and international markets. Pros
Cons
Overall4.9 |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees 0.4% – 0.08% |
Dealing Commission £1 – 0.08% |
See Offers Capital at risk
Saxo Reviews |
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Saxo Share Dealing Review: Lower fees and professional grade techAccount: Saxo Share Dealing Description: Saxo’s platform has share dealing on more than 50 stock exchanges around the world with 22,000 shares available for investors. Making it one of the most diverse investment platforms for share dealing in the UK. Its forte is on the trading side for traders that need direct market access and are more price-sensitive to bid/offer spreads. Is Saxo any good for share dealing? Yes, you can deal shares directly on exchange with Saxo. In fact, Saxo is one of the best DMA brokers for trading shares inside the bid/offer price as you can place your orders directly on the order book. Saxo’s platform has share dealing on more than 50 stock exchanges around the world with 22,000 shares available for investors. Making it one of the most diverse investment platforms for share dealing in the UK. Its forte is on the trading side for traders that need direct market access and are more price-sensitive to bid/offer spreads. Saxo is a good share dealing platform for sophisticated and advanced investors who also need direct access to capital markets. Fees: Saxo Markets charges a share dealing commission based on a percentage of transaction size. They are very competitive though, and UK share dealing commission starts at 0.1% (£100 if you buy £100,000 worth of stock) and drops to 0.05% for more active traders. As Saxo is a prime broker with a retail and institutional client base, they are one of the best share dealing platforms for larger customers. However, there are some downsides. Firstly they do not offer acesss to smaller cap shares on their trading platform like brokers Spreadex and IG, who have a much braoder range of shares to trade online. Secondly, you cannot trade shares as financial spread bets (where profits are free of capital gains tax). Finally, the cost of dealing shares with Saxo is higher than with a broker like Interactive Brokers. But Saxo wins hands down when it comes to customer services, research and analysis. Pros
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Overall4.3 |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees £0 |
Dealing Commission £3 |
See Offers Capital at risk
Interactive Brokers Reviews |
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Interactive Brokers Share Dealing ReviewProvider: Interactive Brokers Share Dealing Verdict: Interactive Brokers is an excellent account for sophisticated share dealers who want to manage their own portfolio with complex order types actively and need access to a wider range of investment products like derivatives, options, and futures. They also offer fractional share dealing if you only want to start trading a small amount. Summary One of the most advanced share dealing platforms for beginners and professional investors.
Fees: Interactive Brokers does not charge share dealing custody fees and minimum share dealing commissions are £1 in the UK or 0.05% of the deal size. Pros
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Overall4.3 |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees £0 - £96 |
Dealing Commission £0 |
See Offers Capital at risk
IG Reviews |
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IG Share Dealing Expert ReviewAccount: IG Share Dealing Description: With IG you can deal in over 13,000+ shares, funds and investment trusts with zero commission on US stocks and UK shares, with a foreign exchange fee of just 0.5%. You can also deal on a limited amount US shares while the market is closed. Is an IG share dealing account any good? An excellent share-dealing platform for those who want to deal shares regularly in the short and long term. You also get access to a huge range of UK small-cap shares, where you can request quotes from marketmakers via RSPs. This is something that is not available from other trading/investing platforms like CMC or Trading 212. An IG share dealing account is different from a spread betting or CFD trading account in that you actually own physical shares as opposed to trading derivatives. The ability to deal in shares with IG means that you can invest in companies for the long term alongside your short-term higher-risk speculation. An excellent share-dealing platform for those who want to deal in shares regularly in the short and long term.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.4 |
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GMG Rating |
Customer Reviews |
Annual Fees £59.88 |
Dealing Commission £3.99 |
See Offers Capital at risk
interactive investor Reviews |
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Interactive Investor Share Dealing ReviewProvider: Interactive Investor Share Dealing Verdict: Interactive Investor is a low-cost share dealing platform that offers investors access to over 40,000 shares. II won the 2021 and 2023 Good Money Guide award for Best Investment Account. Summary Interactive Investor is a great choice for anyone who wants to buy and sell shares on a regular basis and has a large portfolio.
Dealing Fees: Interactive Investor share dealing commissions are a free trade every month, then UK Shares and Funds, US Shares charged £7.99 or upgrade to a £19.99 “Super Investor” account 2 free monthly trades and deal for £3.99. Regular investing is free. Special Offers:
Pros
Cons Fixed-fee expensive for very small share dealing accounts below £1,000
Overall4.3 |
How do you buy Gold in the UK?
The easiest way to invest in Gold in the UK is to buy a Gold ETF like PHGP through a stockbroker like AJ Bell, IG or Interactive Brokers.
There are three main ways to buy gold:
- Physical gold
- Gold-related company shares
- Gold ETFs
The Wall Street Journal has recently reported that as the world falls out of love with Cryptocurrency, more people than ever are searching for “how to trade gold”. So, in this guide, we explain the different ways to speculate on the gold price, the risks involved in trading gold. Plus how to profit from gold tax-free and what moves the gold markets.
In the days before computers were invented, gold could only be traded physically. You had to buy and sell gold bars, coins or jewellery. (As a historical note: during the Great Depression, US citizens couldn’t even own gold legally!)
But all this has changed. Today’s hyper-connected economy has accelerated the trading of the yellow metal. First, gold was delinked from the US Dollar in 1971. This created movements in the gold price. Second, the invention of gold futures popularised gold trading. More recently, the arrival of gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) further excited gold investors.
Buying Physical Gold
The best way to buy physical gold is to invest in gold bars or coins through dealers like StoneX Bullion or BullionVault and store them in secured places (eg bank vaults, with annual charges of course). There is an active market for these precious metal assets in the UK.
The problem with trading physical gold is friction: Storage costs, wide spreads and unfavourable commissions. Not to mention security. And unlike stocks, there is no dividends from owning gold bars.
Buying Gold-Related Company Shares
Precious metal stocks are another way to gain exposure to gold. Many junior mining companies prospect for gold (exploration) but these companies are fairly risky. For more conservative investors, mature gold miners – miners that already have productive mines – are a better bet. These gold companies are listed on stock exchanges where any investors can buy their shares. The US has the biggest gold stock sector in the world, followed by Canada and Australia. These two countries have tremendous mineral resources and have developed a vibrant mining industry.
On the London Stock Exchange, there is a relatively small gold industry. The largest is Fresnillo (FRES), a £6 billion silver miner. Other smaller players are Centamin (CEY), Acacia (ACA), Hochschild Mining (HOC).
Buying Gold ETFs
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that contain assets that track the gold price such as:
- ETFS Gold (LSE:PHGP) or ETFS Silver (LSE:PHAG)
- In the US: Gold (US:GLD) or Silver (US:SLV). Other choices include IAU
ETFs are popular because they are easily tradeable. You buy and sell ETFs like stocks.
Now, apart from physical gold ETFs, there is a suite of gold miner ETFs. These ETFs buy and hold a variety of companies engaging in gold mining activities. The VanEck Gold Miner ETF (GDX) is one of the largest ETFs specialises in holding a portfolio of gold miners. Asset under management totalled $13 billion spread over 49 stocks, including Newmont (US:NEW), Barrick Gold (US:Gold) and Franco Nevada (US:FNV). These are mature miners.
The junior version of GDX is the VanEck Junior Gold Miner (GDXJ), which tend to hold the more speculative miners.
However, a note to remember is this: Precious metal stocks and gold prices may not move exactly. Inexperienced investors tend to assume they move together. So when gold rallies they pile into miners. This is incorrect. At times, gold and gold miners may not even trend in the same direction. Stocks could vastly outperform or underperform the underlying metal – and vice versa. Consequently, many view gold stocks, particularly junior miners, as a ‘high beta’ bet on gold.
Saxo Markets, for example, offers a wide range of Gold ETFs. Note there will be an annual management fee for these ETFs and some will be US Dollar denominated.
The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), one of the oldest ETFs in the market.
The instrument holds physical gold. According to its latest factsheet (April 2024), the size of the fund is valued at a decent $63 billion.
Did you know, in 2011 this gold fund was once the world’s largest ETF, beating SPY? Of course, after a decade of equity bull run since, S&P 500 (SPY) has amassed assets of $497 billion. Imagine what will happen to gold prices if this gold fund were to quadruple its assets….
Why is gold such a popular investment?
Gold is a popular investment because it’s widely seen as a safe-haven asset that tends to hold its value during inflation, market crashes and geopolitical uncertainty.
It has a long history as a store of wealth, isn’t tied to any single government or currency, and is often used to diversify portfolios when stocks and bonds look risky. Investors also like gold because central banks hold and buy it, which reinforces its credibility as a global reserve asset.
When interest rates fall or money supply rises, gold often attracts demand as a hedge against currency debasement. In short, it offers psychological and financial protection when confidence in the wider financial system weakens.
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as The Sunday Times, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.
To contact Richard, please see his Invesdaq profile.
