Hi Tony,
Actually, not only can you but it's much easier than trying to own actual physical bullion. You can do that in an IRA but it's very complicated and there are easier ways to get precious metals into your IRA - both bullion and miners.
Either of these would be trading vehicles. For longer term holding I'd go with CEF for
bullion as it's 55/45 gold/silver . . . and they really have it on hand. If I was going to play this sucker, I'd hit junior silver miners (like rono is doing currently, TYVM!). That's where the serious leverage occurs.
peace,
rono

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-eke-out-gains-close-at-record-highs-2014-11-07/print
WSJ Slant: http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-pause-ahead-of-jobs-data-1415366103
Market At A Glance: http://markets.wsj.com/us

Your kidding right? My wife could beat these returns! with no help from me and her own picks from 5 min.looking over Funds!
Their Real Record during the best (5 yr) market in the last century:
Harvard’s endowment posted annual average gains of 1.7 percent in the five years ended June 30, 2013, according to data compiled by Charles Skorina & Co. That compares with annual returns of 6.8 percent at Columbia University, 5.4 percent at University of Pennsylvania and 3.3 percent at Yale University.

7/1/2008 to 6/30/2013 was hardly the "best five year market" in the last century. The investment in VTSMX from 7/1/2008 - 6/30/2013 turned $10,000 into $14,254.52, an annual return of 7.3%, well below the average yearly return of 11.5% for the S&P 500 from 1928-2013.
That period did, however, coincide with the worst sustained market downturn in over 70 years. and turned $10,000 into $5381.58 on 3/6/2009. (The same investment in VWELX turned $10,000 into an almost identical $14,169.26, an annual return of 7.1%, and only lost 30.5% on 3/6/09.)
Harvard lost ~27% in the downturn. Yale lost 24.6%. As Scott pointed out, endowments that size do not act like individual's portfolios and shouldn't be judged the same way. At the very least, one has to consider that money is constantly being distributed to fund massive research institutions. That David Swenson somehow returned slightly less than the market over the period, with less volatility than the most recognizable 60/40 portfolio in the world, is remarkable.

Not so sure that Craftsman tools are still made here, Ted. Seems to me that I've heard or read otherwise. But they sure as hell were made well, years ago. I've still got quite a few that I bought over 50 years ago.

@scott Why Sears will survive ! Craftman Tools, Made In America, and music to my ears.
Regards,
Ted

Nice going Ol Skeet--- I do recall some discussion about falling knives a few weeks back. Don't know if it was related to the near 10% drop in the S&P. Might have been.
But it might have had more to do with my decision to buy into the NR/commodity areas when they were falling. Actually, despite the hysterical media coverage, the two funds (QRAAX & PRNEX) have held up pretty well over the past 3 or 4 weeks since I bought in - although both are showing big losses YTD. PRNEX was actually up .90% yesterday - far better than anything else that I own or track. I view both as long term hedges against a frothy equity market. So if the 2 funds do reasonably well over the next 3-5 years, I don't particularly care about shorter term performance.
Nice bounce for gold today. Up $28 last check. Energy sector showing strength in recent days - especially nat gas and heating oil due to some pretty extreme weather. Recall seeing 37 and snow flurries in Atlanta few days back.
Apologies to Ol Skeet. My spellchecker preferred Ol Skirt - I've now corrected it. :)

"Your kidding right? My wife could beat these returns! with no help from me and her own picks from 5 min.looking over Funds! "
It becomes what is the purpose of these funds. Is it to hit home runs every year and take a lot of risk or is to try and preserve and gradually grow capital over time? There have been instances in the past of these funds taking risky bets and having it become an issue for the institution - see Larry Summers and his bet on interest rate derivatives at Harvard that went wrong.

Your kidding right? My wife could beat these returns! with no help from me and her own picks from 5 min.looking over Funds!
Their Real Record during the best (5 yr) market in the last century:
Harvard’s endowment posted annual average gains of 1.7 percent in the five years ended June 30, 2013, according to data compiled by Charles Skorina & Co. That compares with annual returns of 6.8 percent at Columbia University, 5.4 percent at University of Pennsylvania and 3.3 percent at Yale University.
.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/harvard-money-managers-exit-on-subpar-private-equity-bets.html

FYI: The past two months have been challenging for stock market investors. The S&P 500 quickly tumbled 9.8% from its Sept. 19 all-time high of 2,019 to as low as 1,820 on Oct. 15.
Because of the way our brains work, most of us worried about the possibility that this correction was turning into an outright market crash. Our instinct was to dump stocks. Surely, many investors sold and told themselves they would "wait out the volatility" on the sidelines. A confident few likely even shorted the market.
However, history shows this is the most classic mistake investors make. So, kudos to those who held on to their long positions.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.businessinsider.com/investors-miss-stock-market-rallies-charts-2014-10#ixzz3HkFGcDuZ

Certainly interesting to watch...

But a lot of altitude to make up given its decline the last 5 years...

FYI: The annual investment showdown between America’s two wealthiest universities is becoming one-sided.
Regards,
Ted
http://online.wsj.com/articles/yales-endowment-tops-harvards-again-in-battle-of-investment-returns-1415048450

Ok If you really want to get Deep: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2501325-performance-how-do-i-measure-thee-let-me-count-the-ways?ifp=0&v=1415277900
mainly stock buying which your managers do for you, but applies

Sears considering forming REIT to help liquidity:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/sears-considering-forming-reit-to-boost-liquidity-1415362718
Same store sales down again but not quite as bad as expected. Says looking to push towards a smaller, "asset light, member-centric" company. Sees 3Q EBITDA neg $275-325M. Sears will continue operating in the stores in the spin-off. Sears up around 17.5% pre-market.
8:00 EST - Looking at the main behind the curtain at Sears (SHLD) and Belus Capital says, "It's apparent the operations remain in shambles and the need to raise cash to survive 2015 (with an intact share price) is a pressing matter." That as the company's 3Q net loss will be some $600M, versus $497M a year earlier, despite flat same-store sales. "This, in our opinion, reflects Sears' obsession with adhering to a 'membership' model where margin is given away but no annual dues are collected" like the wholesale-club operators. "

FYI: Just how active is the manager of your actively managed mutual fund? And how much does it matter?
A debate is on over the concept of “active share”—a measure of how much a portfolio’s stocks differ from those in its benchmark. The issue is whether it is a valid way to evaluate managers
Regards,
Ted
http://online.wsj.com/articles/why-a-busy-mutual-fund-manager-isnt-always-best-1415048459?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB11035627169406564433404580202251947039686.html&fpid=2,7,121,122,201,401,641,1009
Fidelity Study: https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/leadership-series_active-share.pdf

The original fee charged by Schwab was somewhere around 25-30 basis points (I forget), and that was effectively "free" for new, small funds - because it would have cost them that much to manage the bookkeeping and distribution tasks themselves.
The article lists Janus as one of the families that are "prohibited from pricing their [directly sold] funds more cheaply even though it costs them less to service accounts held directly with them."
Bad example. If you buy directly from Janus, you get 'D' shares, which are cheaper than the 'T' shares sold through supermarkets. But Schwab et al. let Janus get away with this because Janus won't allow new shareholders to open an investment account directly with Janus. If you don't already have an account there, you're stuck with 'T' shares through a supermarket.
The actual rule, as I understand it, is that the cheapest open retail fund share class must be available NTF at the brokerage. This is a rule that originally only Schwab had. That's why you could get N&B's Investor class shares NTF at Schwab, but Fidelity (without this rule) only offered the slightly higher-priced Trust share class NTF (with its extra 0.10% 12b-1 fee).
The bottom line is that if you want the convenience of a supermarket, you'll either pay a transaction fee for it, or pay an ongoing fee which could easily cost you more. And if you buy direct, don't buy a fund that can be purchased NTF at a supermarket, because the higher fee is baked into your ER, even though you're not using the supermarket.

Goldman Sachs
https://assetmanagement.gs.com/bin/gsam/servlets/LiteratureViewerServlet?pdflink=/content/dam/gsam/pdfs/us/en/tax-information/2014/EI-51+Cap+Gains_Nov6.pdf&RequestURI=/content/gsam/us/en/advisors/fund-center/literature-and-forms/forms-and-tax-center.html
Eaton-Vance
http://funds.eatonvance.com/tax-information.php
Forward Funds
http://www.forwardinvesting.com/doc/?file=Forward-Funds-2014-Preliminary-Capital-Gain-Distributions.pdf
Gabelli Funds
http://www.gabelli.com/news/2014-estdivnotif.html
Voya
http://investments.voya.com/Investor/Products/Mutual-Funds/Tax-Center/General/2014-Estimated-Capital-Gain-Distributions.htm

FYI:Forbes has an excellent profile out on DoubleLine’s Jeffrey Gundlach. The entire piece is worth a read since Gundlach is not only one of the most respected investors out there today but he’s also very outspoken and entertaining.
There was one part of the interview that I thought was interesting as it relates to the finance industry. Gundlach was describing Jeffrey Sherman, his 37 year-old protégé at DoubleLine:
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/secret-sauce-investment-business/
MFO Board Member johnN was right on top of this ! "King Me"
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/16775/king-me#latest

From linked article:
"The rub with Sears remains that the retail operations are difficult for the average investor to separate from the valuation of the assets that go far beyond the real estate holdings. Investor after investor proclaims the company worthless due to a lack of profits from the retail operation, but the company has a vast array of assets worth billions upon billions that are hidden."
and,
"Simon Property owns or has an interest in 324 retail properties comprising 241 million square feet. The stock is valued at an incredible $46 billion, further providing reason why Bruce Berkowitz and the Fairholme Fund invested so heavily in Sears. Note that Sears has roughly 250 million square feet of real estate. In addition, Simon Property has over $22 billion in debt while Sears has the real estate assets virtually unencumbered."
finally,
"Lampert never had a sole focus to turn around the stores; instead he hoped to develop an online presence, which now ranks only behind Amazon.com and Wal-Mart, while limiting the capital improvements on stores since the plan was to sublease and redevelop the assets anyway."
Sears Holdings' Incredible Hidden Value
If you read this article, here's Seritage's website:
seritage.com/portfolios.aspx

FYI: ECB Signals Readiness For Further Stimulus
Regards,
Ted
http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-edge-lower-1415279918
Markets At A Glance: http://markets.wsj.com/us

Old_Joe, just posted about WESNX in the EMIYX thread. The fund has been helped this year by its large (25% of the portfolio) weighting in small cap Indian stocks, which have returned 50% YTD. The fund also had a very high weighting in Consumer Discretionary stocks (30%), particularly automotive related holdings, which helped performance.