The world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust , said its holdings dropped 1 percent to 1260.2 tonnes Friday from 1272.90 tonnes on Thursday.

Yet today SPDR Gold Trust registered its biggest one-day gain in more than a year, rising 1.8 percent, as investors flocked to seek refuge in bullion of gold and silver because of the continuing economic concerns that are being triggered by a debt downgrade of the United States from a AAA to a AA+credit rating.

Holdings of the world’s largest silver-backed exchange-traded fund, iShares Silver Trust dropped 0.7 percent to 9705.90 tonnes by Friday, from 9772.56 tonnes on Thursday. Again, numbers were up today, as silver is volatile anyway so you can expect to see these price spikes often and not be alarmed.

iShares has silver ETFs and gold ETFs which have been helping push the precious metals to all time highs. That and all the turmoil in the stock market and us economy.

They also have leading market and sector exchange traded funds that will allow you to choose a whole sector at once without the need to buy many many equities. This can be great and enable you to diversify easily without having to sink a lot of money in things like mutual funds. The biggest challenge you’ll have is choosing which sector is hot right now and which isn’t.

A quick note on choosing a sector. A lot of times, by the time you here of a hot sector. It’s too late, and you miss out on the run up. Getting into an ETF allows you have less exposure to that one company you would normally have to choose in that sector. This can make any losses after a sell off have less of an impact on your bottom line.

More on this later…