Speculators prefer their gold in the form of exchange-traded funds such as SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) rather than in bullion because of their low transaction costs, liquidity and the ability to margin their holdings.

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The caveats: transaction costs can add up, and trading on margin, as most people do, is risky.

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As an investor who likes the Facebook story, I would prefer Facebook to post another quarter in order to reverse its margin compression and to prove its ability to leverage the Instagram transaction into a revenue-generating mobile strategy.

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That margin was dramatically shrunk the next trading day when investors realized their knowledge of the transaction.

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