What if you could own real gold without digging or risking your life? The NewGold ETF lets you do just that. It’s like owning a piece of a gold bar stored safely in a vault. No pickaxe needed. You buy small units on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), and their value moves with the gold price.
Two months ago, soldiers who were patrolling the old, abandoned gold mine in Matsiloje found five Zimbabweans.
According to media reports, the group, three men and two teenagers, were believed to be illegal gold miners, also known as ‘zama zamas’.
Since they didn’t have the right travel documents, they were arrested and taken to court in Francistown. In the past year, an illegal miner got trapped in an old mine shaft and died, according to reports.
If only they knew. There’s another way to chase gold — one that doesn’t risk your life or freedom. One where your wealth grows quietly in a vault, not in a shaft.
They could have tried to own gold without ever touching a pickaxe or setting foot in a mine. Instead of hiding in bushes, you could still tap into the same golden dream:
- Legally,
- Safely,
- and smartly
The gold would be stored safely in a vault in London, quietly going up in value while they live their lives freely. No threats of stealing, even from themselves.
Enter ETF
That’s what NewGold ETF lets you do.
For context (and illustrative purposes only), let us say that after days of hard digging, they finally strike gold. But it’s just one gold bar. Not enough for each person to take one home. So what do they do?
They agree to split it. Maybe not equally, but each one gets a portion.
- One gets 30%,
- Another 20%,
- And the rest share the rest, depending on how much work they did or what tools they brought (whether they bought them or stole them).
They don’t each own a whole gold bar. Just a share of it. Just as you buy a share of the company but not the whole company (it would be too expensive to buy). Like owning a leg of a cow but not the whole cow.
Now, back to the gold bar. They quietly stash it in a vault.
Now what?
They can’t walk into a shop and sell the gold, maybe because it is expensive to buy the whole thing, even you won’t afford it.
So instead, they create five pieces of paper, each one saying: “This represents your share of the gold we’re keeping in the vault.” These slips become tradable, they can sell them to others who want a piece of gold, without ever handing over the real bar.
The value of the paper goes up or down depending on the price of gold, which is in Rands. People trust the paper because it’s backed by the actual gold in the vault.
No shovel, No Problem
To make it easier for others to invest, they decide to turn this paper into something official, they list it on the exchange.
Now anyone, even people far from the mine, including you, can buy a piece of the action, without needing to see the gold.
But gold doesn’t come with dotted lines — they can’t literally saw off a piece that’s exactly 30%. So they agree to create 100 equal slips that represent the value of the whole bar. Now:
- The man who owns 30% gets 30 slips.
- The one with 25% gets 25 slips, and so on.
Wealth Exchanges Hands
Each slip can now be traded — maybe the 30% guy sells 10 slips to raise cash for something; wealth exchanges hands.His ownership of gold changes, but the gold itself stays safely in the vault.
That’s how the NewGold ETF works:
- A big gold bar is stored in a vault, in London.
- It’s divided into small units — each unit represents a fixed share (like 1/100th of an ounce).
- You can buy or sell these units on the stock exchange, just like the slips.
- That unit gives you a slice of the gold, just like the zama zamas sharing what they found.
So even if you can’t afford a whole bar of gold, you can still own a piece of it, and trade that piece just like a proper investor.
How do you then own NewGold ETF?
- You buy a unit on the Botswana Stock Exchange (just like you’d buy a share of a company).
- Each unit is backed by real gold — not promises, not paper, but actual gold bars held in a secure vault.
- It mirrors the price of gold in Rands but when you buy it on the BSE it’s in pula (if gold prices rise, your ETF’s value rises too).
- But you don’t need to buy a full bar — which is expensive.
NewGold Performance
NewGold was the most traded gold investment on the Botswana Stock Exchange between January and April.
- Investors bought and sold over P50 million worth of it
- Its price went up by nearly 29% — even better than the 22% increase it had in 2024.
- This means if you had bought P10,000 worth of NewGold units, their value would have grown by about 29%, turning into around P12,900.
It’s cost-effective (no need to store or insure physical gold) and simple (you buy and sell it just like you’d trade shares). Storing real gold at home isn’t always safe or easy.
That’s the power of an ETF — a tool of the modern investor. Safer than a mine, smarter than a heist
