I know people out there who have invested a lot in gold under the belief that in the event of like complete societal collapse or hyperinflation, they could use it for purchasing.
I have the hunch it’s a scam, but I haven’t learned enough monetary theory, business, or economics to understand why.
you can short EFT’s but shorting the metal itself is a different thing. As an element that has real world uses the market drives t he value.
It pretty much is the same thing. In theory, shorting the ETF will drive the price of gold down (until the short needs to be covered; like all shorts), because all accounts must eventually be settled. The price of gold is literally set by the futures market, which people with the appropriate approval can also short. Gold dealers literally look up the price on the futures market and add/subtract a few percentage points to determine how much to buy/sell physical gold for.