Yes, you can invest in real gold or other precious metals for your IRA. The term gold IRA refers to a specialized individual retirement account (IRA) that allows investors to hold gold as a qualified retirement plan. Investors with gold IRAs can hold physical metals such as gold bars or coins as well as securities related to precious metals in their portfolio. If you decide to invest in a precious metals IRA, you should do so conservatively.
Depending on your financial situation, most experts recommend investing no more than 5 to 10% of your retirement savings in precious metals. A gold IRA is a retirement account that allows people to invest in physical gold. They are often used to diversify savings and create an inflation hedge. Like other IRAs, these accounts also offer valuable tax benefits.
If you’re interested in setting up such an account, you’ll need to look for a specialized custodian or firm that is able to manage all documentation and reporting for tax purposes that are required to maintain a Gold IRA. Gold IRA companies are essentially brokers who sell IRS-approved precious metal coins and bars that you can invest in a gold IRA, as well as non-IRA precious metals purchased from collectors. You can choose a mix of gold and silver, and some gold IRA companies also allow you to add platinum and palladium to your IRA. Gold IRAs allow you to hold these precious metals in an individual retirement account and offer the same tax benefits as IRAs invested in mutual funds.
A gold IRA is characterized by the fact that you own the actual precious metals, as opposed to stocks or fund shares in mining companies. Your Gold IRA provider can help you determine which coins, bars, and other gold bars meet the requirements for storage in a Gold IRA. A gold IRA is a type of IRA that allows investors to own physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. If you already have an IRA or 401 (k), either Regular or Roth, you have the option to convert some or all of your balance to a Gold IRA.
You can choose between Equity Trust Company and STRATA Trust Company as your account custodian and Delaware Depository or Brink’s Global Services for your precious metals warehouse. This is a type of IRA that the investor manages directly and is allowed to own a wider range of investment products than other IRAs. You can invest in gold ETFs that own physical gold, such as SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) or iShares Gold Trust (IAU). It uses Delaware Depository, a popular choice among gold IRA providers, to store customer assets such as gold coins and gold bars.
If the storage and security requirements for holding physical gold seem problematic, there are other ways to add gold to your portfolio. While many people who own physical gold do so because they believe it is safer, you must carefully research the company you want to buy from to avoid fraud. The timeline for starting to claim the required minimum distributions (RMDs) of a traditional Gold IRA depends on your age or the year you were born.
