Another identity crisis at gold ETF Investor - fund or ETF?

This blog has had an identity crisis before.

There was another one last week: why do I invest in a fund rather than an ETF when it comes to gold mining companies? I only asked myself this question after seeing a piece on gold miner ETFs in Moneyweek - the inconsistency hadn't occurred to me before!

ETF Securities replies to "spreads widen dramatically" claim

ETF Securities has replied to Gold ETF Investor's questions about spikes in the spreads (trading costs) of one of its most traded physical gold ETFs.

Figures produced by London Stock Exchange each week calculate 'time weighted' spreads. In the week ending 13 April 2012 a handful of ETF Securities products saw their spreads spike.

Those listed by Gold ETF Investor were:

PHGP: up to 1.26% from 0.14%
SGBS (ETFS Physical Swiss Gold): up to 2.41% from spreads between 0.25%-0.6%
PHSN: up to 14% up from 2.3% the week before.

Very odd price crashes for gold stocks on Friday on London Stock Exchange

Prices drop in final trades

Despite Friday's massive rises for precious metals the shares of a number of gold and silver miners trading on the London Stock Exchange saw their closing prices drop sharply.

Fresnillo (FRES) shares closed down more than 4% after a one-off trade. Randgold Resources (RRS) and African Barrick Gold (ABG) also saw their prices plunge from daily highs. 

This may be normal after a volatile day but it still looks odd. These kinds of moves  have been noted on this blog before (here and here) showing that the share price of Fresnillo tends to jump at the end of trading days.