Benefits of a gold IRA In times of inflation and volatile markets, some investors use gold to hedge against uncertainty. Gold can also be used as a long-term saving strategy. However, there is mixed evidence as to whether owning gold can really protect your savings. If gold seems like a solid choice for you, Sentell suggests investing no more than a third of your retirement savings in a gold IRA.
For this reason, even investors who generally prefer gold, such as Russ Kösterich, portfolio manager of the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund, advise you to treat precious metals with the same care as any other physical asset, such as real estate. If your existing retirement accounts haven’t gained much value since they were opened, look for a Gold IRA company with low minimum investment requirements. This company stores or stores your actual gold bars, says John Johnson, president of GoldStar Trust, headquartered in Canyon, Texas. This author doesn’t know what he’s talking about and has probably never held a precious metal IRA in his entire life.
If you buy the gold for your IRA, you must also buy it in one, a half, a quarter, or a tenth of an ounce of gold coins. The Los Angeles-based company offers people the opportunity to invest in precious metals through a direct purchase or a retirement account. However, the company’s transaction agreement states that the spread on coins and gold bars sold to IRA customers “was generally between 17 and 33%. If you’d rather not invest in a gold IRA, you can also buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium directly through this company.
Next, the Noble Gold IRA team will call your new custodian bank to set up your account and complete any additional paperwork you may need to complete. If you sell the gold or silver to a third-party seller, you could lose money on a different spread, as traders usually want to pay less than they think they’ll get on the open market for the metal. In addition to these basic fees, IRA providers can choose whether to charge their customers a commission for buying gold. Specialized custodian banks such as Fidelity, Schwab or TD Ameritrade do not manage physical gold in an IRA.
These ETFs can also use “gold claims,” held by second and third parties, as part of their holdings.
