Hard asset alliance
by Greg Lee | July 16, 2012 11:17 pm
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Are you familiar with Hard Assets Alliance? It seems they offer physical gold stored and give you the option to hold your metals overseas – in Zurich, London, Sydney or Singapore. I would appreciate your feedback.
http://www.hardassetsalliance.com[1]
Links:
- http://www.hardassetsalliance.com: http://www.hardassetsalliance.com
Source URL: http://stockgumshoe.com/2012/07/microblog-hard-asset-alliance/
This is a startup, I think, with a bunch of partners in many of the major newsletter publishers — so I bet we’ll hear a lot more about it. I don’t know if they’ll do anything really different than well-established firms like GoldMoney.com or the Perth Mint or any of the dozens of smaller dealers and brokers who will store for you. Haven’t personally looked at the details and I probably won’t do so, since I don’t have much need for more gold and my specifications for storage and recall of my precious metals holdings are neither particularly demanding nor unmet.
Do more research. This is a vastly superior product than gold money. First and foremost, you own whole, fully allocated bars that are deliverable upon demand without a fee. Bullion vault trades only through their prop desk, only sells 400 oz bars and charges an absurd fee for delivery. The two services are miles apart. Plus haa allows delivery anywhere in the world.
Good to know, Joe — I don’t have particular need of such a service, but there does seem to be a pretty big market for it.
One catch that I see is a $5000 minimum on transactions, so you can’t buy one coin at a time.
I have looked at the details; also received a number of super-secretive prerelease e-mails telling about that smashing ‘new’ concept of mouse-click buying of physical bullion. Hard Assets Alliance looks a bit like a mere frontend on existing offers like those of DDSC (Delaware Depository Service Co). It is true that HAA bullion comes a lot closer to the concept of investing in phyzz than GLD or other precious metals ETFs (just paper; systemic and counterparty risks),. On closer inspection though, I must say that I cannot see anything ‘revolutionary’ about the concept: rather than that $5000 minimum mentioned above, the real catch turns out to be price per ounce (let alone per 400 oz or 1000 oz bar). Precious metals investors fall into two, largely equally popular, categories: they either want to hold phyzz in their hands and are willing to pay some markup over spot (in this case, HAA is too expensive; there are better prices for physical bullion all over the place, including large and small internet vendors offering mouse-click ordering, and you might want to buy lower from these) or they want it stored in a safe place, probably off-shore/optional jurisdictions in which case BullionVault has a proven record and significantly better terms (end-of-day auditing, liquidity, storage fees come to mind), better price recovery systems, and overall lower prices at that. HAA may be fine for the — somewhat atypical — retail customer who isn’t so sure about whether they want their bullion vaulted or delivered (incurring additional charges) and are prepared to pay the price for that kind of hesitation. I’d rather buy phyzz online cheaper or enjoy the lower price, added benefits and professionalism of BullionVault though.
But bullion vault is not cheaper. bullion vault sells unallocated gold, then charges a high markup if you want to take delivery. So if you want YOUR gold, expect a 5% or higher fee. I can’t see any benefit to bullion vault. The other problem is bullion vault sells all their gold from their own prop desk. What happens if everyone sells? Can bullion vault handle that level of liquidity? I wouldn’t want to find out.
I plan to pursue setting up an account with Hard Assets Alliance.
Adrian here from BullionVault. Just a couple of points:
BullionVault users own allocated gold. There is no lending, leasing or credit arrangement of any sort. Allocation is proven – publicly each day – by the Daily Audit, showing that client gold is all there, in full, and that there are not multiple claims on the same metal.
Not sure what’s meant by ’prop desk’ above, but BullionVault is an open exchange, where all users can post bids and offers as they choose. Yes, we quote prices to ensure you can deal whenever you wish. But peer-to-peer trading accounts for 2/3rds of volume – and volume was $2.5bn (with a ”b”) in 2011. This is very different, and very much more liquid, than the single counter-party of traditional dealers.
Since our users hold metal in the form of large, Good Delivery bars, the liquidity of the global wholesale market is also on tap. It also means you’re not paying retail fabrication costs up front. Users who wish to can pay those charges and take physical possession if they choose. As for BullionVault’s pricing, we rank number one worldwide on any serious measure (see TrustableGold, Political Metals). Can’t speak for the new program’s costs — can’t find them detailed anywhere in full.
HAA is a front-end for Gold Bullion International (http://www.bullioninternational.com/). I don’t know if HAA offers a value add that would make it worthwhile instead of going direct to GBI (or if GBI even deals direct with retail customers). Here is the press release for it: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/7/prweb9703582.htm
Interesting, maybe we should just start our own Gumshoe Gold service, eh?
http://www.bullioninternational.com/solutions/white-label-services/white_label_services
That same firm, by the way, is also trying to sell the “gold dividend” offering as a white label service for mining companies, I think the first decent size firm to try it is Gold Resource Corp (and they’ve gotten plenty of attention from newsletters as a result, despite the fact that the “gold dividend” seems like an expensive gimmick)
Is the Hard Asset Alliance a legit company?
Donna,
Hard Assets Alliance is definitely legit. We have a full review including an article titled “can I trust Hard Assets Alliance” at our website Buy And Store Gold
Roger.
Not sure they are staying around. They are having a problem getting transfers out in a timely manner. I have requested a money transfer to my bank account and it has been close to a month and several calls and still the transfer is pending. Now I am getting answering machine instead of person. At this time I couldn’t recommend them.
Chuck – I looked into this. The issue was the ABA number you provided for the wire transfer was incorrect. Most people (including me) pull the ABA number off of their check. That works fine for most banks, particularly the larger banks. But some banks use a different ABA for incoming wires than appears on your check. The matter has been resolved, but feel free to contact me through our customer service department if I can be of assistance. 1-877-727-7387.
-Ed D’Agostino
General Manger
Hard Assets Alliance
I’ve been using Hard Assets Alliance for about the past 2 months and have not had any problems with getting funds from my bank to the account. Usually takes about 2 working days once it is set up the first time. The only areas that i would say that have been “avg.” has been the web site is sometimes very slow to load. it only happened to me recently in past month or so and it could be my internet connection as well. minor inconvenience. the other is that i would like to see more variety in the sizes/locations of the metals especially those locations outside the US. i know that this will probably improve through time but right now it is sufficient for my purposes, but would like more.