Buy Gold Without Being Weighed Down

State Street is the blue-chip Boston investment company behind the ETF that tracks the S&P 500. When people invest in the gold fund, State Street buys gold on their behalf in the London market. The metal is held in secure vaults managed by HSBC.

That bank, incidentally, is so old it used to be part of the financial arm of the British empire. HSBC stands for The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and is still known among old hands in London as "Honkers and Shankers."

Last week one gold Web site was hustling 1 oz. American Eagle gold coins for $710. At the time, gold bullion was trading in the spot market for $664 an ounce. So if you bought the coins you were already paying 7% too much.

If that doesn't sound like much, note that the Tuesday slump in the stock market that made headlines worldwide amounted to less than 4%.

Even better: shares in the streetTRACKS Gold fund happened to fall slightly below the bullion price. Each share gets you a tenth of an ounce with your name on it, but they were selling at the same time for just $65.94.Compared to the gold hustlers online, that's a saving of $5 an ounce -- before postage, storage, insurance and so on.