Best Gold IRA Companies Ranked - May 2024

When wars were won, the first stop of the conquering nation was always the loser’s treasury, because that’s where the gold and silver booty could be found. In today’s world, precious metals are an important part of any retirement plan, due mainly to the protection they provide for other assets, particularly “paper” assets, like stocks, bonds, and fiat currencies.

Historically speaking, during times of economic uncertainty, panic, or devaluation, precious metals prices move in the opposite direction, thereby offsetting losses of those other assets. Additionally, precious metals tend to deliver a long-term increase in value regardless, which makes them perfect components for the long-term investment strategy of a retirement portfolio.

Gold, silver, palladium and platinum bars and rounds produced by a NYMEX or COMEX-approved refinery or national government mint, as long as they meet minimum coin fineness requirements.

The same reporting and distribution requirements apply to a Gold based IRA account, as to a regular traditional IRA. However, the metals must be in the possession of a trustee or custodian. Specifically, “the trustee or custodian must be a bank, federally insured credit union, saving and loan association, or an entity approved by the IRS to act as a trustee or custodian.”

A Gold IRA can be started from scratch, with contributions up to the annual limit, which is $5,500 or $6,500 for those over 50 years of age. Or they can be initiated with funds rolled over from an old (or possibly still in-service):

• 401(k)
• 403(b)
• 457(b)
• Deferred Compensation Plan
• Non-Prototype IRA
• Pension Plan
• Roth IRA
• Thrift Savings Plan
• TIAA CREF
• Traditional IRA
• SEP IRA
• SIMPLE IRA
• Beneficiary IRA.

The IRA account itself is capable of holding any IRA-approved precious metals and products. The metals include; gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, and the products include the following:

Gold (Minimum fineness: .995%) includes American Gold Eagle bullion coins, American Gold Eagle proof coins, American Gold Buffalo uncirculated coins (proofs not allowed), Australian Kangaroo/Nugget coins, Austrian Gold Philharmonic coins, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coins, Chinese Gold Panda coins.

Silver (Minimum fineness: .999%) includes American Silver Eagle bullion coins, American Silver Eagle proof coins, Australian Silver Kookaburra coins, Austrian Silver Philharmonic coins, Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coins, Chinese Silver Panda coins, Mexican Silver Libertad coins.

Platinum (Minimum fineness: .9995%) includes American Platinum Eagle bullion coins, American Platinum Eagle proof coins, Australian Platinum Koala coins, Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf coins, Isle of Man Platinum Noble coins.

Palladium (Minimum fineness: .9995%) includes Canadian Palladium Maple Leaf coins.

If you are looking for possible retirement investment opportunities, you may be wondering whether a gold IRA is a safe investment or at least a good long-term investment. In order to properly address this question, it is important that we define what “safe” means in the context of investing.

For the purposes of answering this question, we will assume that “safe” means that the investment has a high probability of making a positive return and that capital is preserved. With this in mind, can investing in gold via an IRA be considered a safe investment?

A gold IRA is similar to a regular IRA except that the underlying asset is gold, or other precious metals rather than stocks or other traditional types of investment assets. This means that the returns on these types of investment are linked to the returns on gold (precious metals). Since all investments have some level of risk involved, we need to determine how the risk of investing in gold compares to the corresponding rewards, and how those rewards compare to the returns on traditional IRAs.

Investment risk is closely linked to market volatility and how that volatility affects investing activities. Stocks are one of the most volatile types of investment assets and are therefore considered to be highly risky. While gold also has a level of volatility, it is considered to be a relatively safe investment haven because it is an effective hedge against inflation.

In fact, whenever the stock market gets extremely volatile, many investors allocate a larger portion of their investment portfolios to gold. Gold tends to hold its value during periods of high volatility as happened during the 2008/2009 market crash. This is one reason why many investors believe that a gold IRA rollover is a safe investment.

The following chart shows how gold performed relative to the stock market between 1970 and 2015.

• Gold —
• Silver —
• Dow Jones Industrial Average —
• S & P 500 —

This data demonstrates that gold outperformed the stock market during this period.

There are several other valid reasons for considering gold IRAs as safe investments. To begin with, gold is considered as an effective hedge against inflation especially during times of financial or political crisis. This is because the value of gold cannot be manipulated by monetary policies or other government regulations. Other fiat currencies upon which paper investments are based, can and usually are manipulated by the government in order to achieve certain economic objectives.

The fact that gold tends to preserve wealth or to hedge against the loss of value, makes it an attractive retirement asset option. The whole goal of retirement investing is to not only maximize investment returns, but also to preserve the invested capital.

As a retirement investment option, a gold IRA rollover is therefore an excellent choice. While it will not necessarily give the highest rate of return, it is one of the best ways to preserve the value of your retirement investments.

Yes, you can. You can achieve this through either a gold IRA transfer or a gold IRA rollover from an existing retirement plan such as a 401k or Roth IRA.

In the process of a gold IRA transfer, a direct transaction occurs from your current IRA custodian to your new custodian. The entire process is handled by both custodians, and you never come into contact with the money.

On the other hand, the process of gold IRA rollover involves you withdrawing the funds from your current IRA custodian and you depositing them into the account of the gold IRA company you have chosen. By law, you have only 60 days to complete this transaction after which the funds become taxable on withdrawal. Also, the law allows only a single tax-free rollover of IRA funds per year.

A gold IRA plan starts with the interested individual opening a self-directed IRA with a gold IRA Company. It is crucial to take into consideration the reviews and compare fees of various companies before settling on where to invest.

Once the account is set up, the owner is then expected to finance it, and the funds can be obtained from contributions, transfers or 401K rollovers. The owner will then be required to choose the dealer they prefer their gold to be bought from by filling out a metals-direction from.

The gold IRA custodian will send your purchase order to the gold bullion dealer and have them ship the gold coins or bars to an approved depository. On receiving the gold assets, the depository will inform your gold IRA custodian after which he/she will document the purchase of the gold and pay the dealer. And that is how you become the owner of a gold IRA account.

A gold IRA custodian refers to the financial institution responsible for managing your gold IRA account and the assets held by it. In this case, the assets include gold bullion coins or gold bars. This custodian is responsible for executing all transactions for your account from administrative responsibilities such as tax reporting to ensuring the actual gold is held on your behalf by an approved depository.

Choosing the best gold IRA company is a personal choice that should be based on several factors such as the company’s reputation, expertise, metal prices, fees etc. However, in our research we found this company to be the best.