Levering Gold's Climb

Gold stocks are a good way to take advantage of a climb in gold because they historically outclimb the metal by a factor of 2 or better. And the stocks tend to run in 4 year cycles of under/outperformance of the metal. They are just now finishing up about a four year under cycle. But there is an alternative. It's the PowerShares DB Gold Double Long ETN (DGP). This is not an ETF, it's an exchange traded note (ETN) and is a debt instrument. This has a big tax advantage as it isn't hit with the 28% longterm collectible rate as ETFs are - only the 15% rate as a stock would be. The recent performance of DGP vs the popular gold ETFs:

This is over a 2X outclimbing of the metal with the same tax treatment as stocks.