Why and How to Own Physical Gold and Silver in Your IRA

Money Metals Exchange is now taking orders for the Type 2 Silver American Eagle. We expect to begin shipping orders for the updated coin design in just a couple of days.

It is worth noting, however, that premiums for the American Eagle remain very high. The U.S. Mint is producing only a fraction of coins needed to satisfy current demand. There are rounds and bars available with a much lower price per ounce for savvy investors who prefer to wait until Eagle premiums decline.

The vast majority of Americans’ retirement funds remain locked up with Wall Street firms who offer the usual menu of conventional securities – stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

The answer to why investors might shift funds from a conventional IRA to a self-directed precious metals IRA is pretty straightforward.

It is a whole lot riskier today to have all your wagons hitched to paper assets than it has been in recent decades, including during the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

• Americans now know bankers and brokers have a penchant for screwing clients with excessive fees and bad advice.
• Financial institutions are larger, and in some ways even more leveraged than ever before. The assessment of the Fed or regulators who claim our financial institutions are strong is hard to believe. They were catastrophically wrong in 2008.
• The next financial crisis, or some other crisis of confidence, could rock the nation and your investments. Confidence is the ephemeral foundation underpinning institutions such as Wall Street and the U.S. dollar, and it is growing thinner by the day. A collapse may not be too far away.
• Most financial advisors (along with Dave Ramsey and Warren Buffett) are wrong about gold. They have been wrong for twenty years, so it is time to stop listening.

Now we’ll cover the “How” of setting up a gold or silver IRA.

Start by evaluating the basics. Choose a firm with a reputation for providing great service and competitive fees. You might give extra points for a firm that is well established in the industry.

We do not recommend using custodians charging more than $200 in annual fees or those charging more than $50 to process a transaction. There are some very good IRA firms who charge fees significantly below those levels, so there is no reason to pay more.

The capability to enroll, view, and manage transactions online will be a major consideration if you prefer the convenience of managing affairs electronically.

If you prefer to deal in person, make your inquiries by phone to see if you can reach a service rep easily and get good care.

The most important rule for successful investing with a self-directed IRA is to avoid IRA custodians who want to steer you into particular products or programs.

Some “rare” and “proof” coin dealers have special arrangements with custodians in order to steer people into high premium coins. These include proof coins and “special-issue” or “limited-release” coins with odd weights such as ¾ oz or 1-½ oz.

Obscure and over-hyped specialty coins generally do not perform well for anyone but the dealers selling them and should be avoided like the plague. In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently published an extremely damning article about the proof coin market.

Clients must also determine where to store the metal held in their self-directed IRA.

Some clients may want to store metals closer to where they live. However, we suggest there are more important considerations...

• Storage fees should be low, of course.
• Investors should choose a reputable, established depository which offers segregated or allocated storage.
• Lastly, the depository should offer top-notch physical security and all-risks insurance coverage for 100% of the metal stored.

Money Metals Depository meets all of the above criteria and more.

MMD operates a Class 3 vault located directly below a County Sheriff’s department. The storage fees are among the lowest in our industry.

Segregated storage is the only type we offer in Idaho, and our facility is far away from the COMEX system of vaults, Wall Street bankers, and Washington DC politicians. With segregated storage, the coins and bars you send in are the exact property you get back when the time comes.

If you would like to store your IRA metals with Money Metals Depository and take advantage of zero shipping costs and instant delivery from Money Metals Exchange, you’ll want to choose one of the Trustees below for establishing your self-directed IRA:

The above IRA custodians can serve clients nationwide. They have competitive fees and offer good client support. If you need a specific recommendation on an IRA custodian based on your circumstances, please just give one of our Specialists a call at 1-800-800-1865. You can also get more information at MoneyMetals.com.

About the Author:

Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named "Best in the USA" by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, Siegner puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals' brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.