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Everywhere you go, the effects of rising prices have undeniably pained the daily lives of most people. Unfortunately, it seems we’ve only just begun to endure the duress of inflation in the US. Prices are still going up every day. However, while the value of paper money and printed currencies is slowly diminishing, there is an alternative that has bright potential as a safe way to ensure the security of your hard-earned savings.
Investing in precious metals today is an easy and low-risk approach to expand and protect the money you’re saving for the days to come. Keep reading to find out how you can get started with investing in precious metals.
Benefits of Precious Metals when Investing:
The appeal of investing in precious metals is significantly the result of gold’s social status, the best advantages are not exclusive to royalty. However, the ability to actually hold your investments in the palm of your hand is another influence. You can wear a platinum watch, but you can’t use a percentage of company shares as an accessory with any outfit.
Start-Up Simplicity:
One of the greatest benefits is how easy it is for anyone to get started. The stiff rules that regulate the purchase and sale of stocks, bonds, and other investments don’t apply to precious metals. You can easily buy them at a local pawn shop, through a collector online, or a plethora of other possible merchants. Government has a lot of say-so over the printed currency, but not so much where precious metals are involved.
Protected and Hedged:
Finally, because the world has a limited amount of these metals, the appreciation rate, and ultimate top dollar cap-off is potentially limitless. Plus there is a worldwide market for these timeless and borderless commodities. Industries from technology to automotive and from novelties to trending fashion, all use various precious metals in one way or another. This fact is one of the things that cause precious metals to be a hedge against inflation. What that means is gold, silver, and other metals don’t suffer the same value decreases as paper money and other resources when the cost of basically everything else goes up.
Preserve Retirement Funds for Your Future:
The US Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, acknowledges four metals as precious, or enough to be accepted into retirement accounts:
- Gold
- Silver
- Platinum
- Palladium
The IRS finds a variety of forms acceptable in any of those:
- Specific Coins
- Bars
- Bullion or Rounds
- Pure Jewelry
Including these assets in your investment portfolio adds diversity. Having a variety of investments boosts the security to your investment’s totality by providing a plan B, C, D, and so on. Should plan A suffer loss, you have the options you chose to diversify your investments with to fall back on as mentioned here.
How to Invest in Precious Metals:
There are three ways for you to consider as you get started with this type of investment. Each of them has a level of risk and each has its advantages. Take time to weigh these out before you jump in head-first.
Physical Gold:
This investment in precious metals involves you storing the assets yourself at the risk of them being stolen. The value per ounce of gold is currently $59.13. Silver is at $24.11 per ounce, platinum at $1070 per ounce and palladium is valued at $1995 per ounce. The value of any gold or other continued to rise as the years go on. This too adds security to your savings because the items are worth more when they sell out of your retirement account than they were worth going in.
Gold IRAs:
These are self-directed IRS-approved retirement savings account that enables the account holder to own bullion in that account. This allows you a safe place to store your treasures. You cannot own bullion, real estate, or a few other types of assets with a standard Individual Retirement Account, or IRA. You must open a self-directed IRA for these investments to be in your retirement.
Gold ETFs:
An ETF is an Exchange Trade Fund. These allow you to invest in gold mining or other gold processing industries rather than buying gold.
