Self Directed Precious Metal IRA

An individual retirement account should be considered when someone wants to be financially prepared after retiring. On the same note, a self-directed precious metal IRA could help you secure your retirement savings against unpredictable financial crises that might happen in the future.

Read on below to understand more about SDIRA and some companies that offer this service to help you decide the best retirement plan to fit your needs.

At a Glance Rating:

Top 4 Gold IRA Companies Review

Augusta Precious Metals: Editor’s Choice – Great Buyback Program (4.9/5)

Star Rating

Augusta Precious Metals provides Gold, Silver, and precious coins IRA, which boasts their long commitment to dedicated service. They only employ financial professionals to serve their clients and customers while using a streamlined process of buying precious metals.

The company focuses on helping you to diversify your retirement portfolio with alternative assets like physical precious metals by doing their top three commitments: Transparency, Simplicity, and Service.

Our analysis of this product revealed the pros and cons of trusting your self-directed IRA to Augusta Precious Metals below:

Pros

• The crew is thorough and responsive, so they are considered an excellent company regarding transparency.
• Augusta boasts of their streamlined buying process to acquire precious metals and their efforts in assisting customers with their paperwork.
• As per Joe Montana’s words (Hall of Fame Quarterback), the team from Augusta shows a professional and efficient approach to sharing and educating their clients with the knowledge others would not share.
• Augusta’s team is dedicated to being committed from the first transaction until the end or whenever the client needs assistance.

Cons

• Although there are many more quality assurance rating platforms, Augusta Precious Metals still needs to be added to Trustpilot, one of the most trusted review sites in the world.
• A customer might have a hard time getting answers to their questions if the company knew that you do not yet possess the $50,000 required minimum amount of investment.

American Hartford Gold: Runner up – Best Price for Bullion (4.8/5)

Star Rating

The American Hartford Gold, led by professionals and experienced Chief Executive Officer Sanford Mann and Executive Chairman Scott Gerlis, provides dedicated and reliable IRA-related services.

They specialize in delivering physical precious metals like Gold, Palladium, and Silver bars or coins right to the customer’s doorsteps. The company guarantees its clients receive the highest quality of these precious metals to satisfy new or experienced IRA investors.

American Hartford Gold is already an A+ and 5-star review awardee from the most trusted review platforms, such as Google and Trustpilot. After conducting experiments with it, the pros and cons for this company are given below to give you a better insight into how this company performs.

Pros

• They offer door-to-door delivery.
• The company supports local and national charitable organizations to give back to the community through financial and volunteer acts.
• The company currently employs over 100 individuals capable of providing high-quality customer service to let people know more about physical precious metals and retirement funds.

Cons

• As the company offers door-to-door delivery of your physical Gold and silver, logistics mistakes and problems cannot be avoided, so that it may take several days in transit.
• Some clients may need help transferring funds because after trying out this product, the company requires wire transfers on behalf of the customers instead of other more convenient ways of monetary transmittance.

Goldco: Best and Most Trusted Gold IRA Company Overall (4.6/5)

Star Rating

Goldco provides a decade-long experience in helping its customers protect their retirement accounts. They are located in Los Angeles to assist clients when handling their IRAs and are also precious metals dealers.

Goldco directly sells gold and silver for customers who want to diversify their retirement funds with physical precious metals.

When we trialed this product, the following pros and cons are listed below to learn more about Goldco:

Pros

• Existing IRA holders can transfer funds from their traditional IRAs to new self-directed precious metal IRAs with a smooth process.
• The company is happy to share its expertise with someone with little to nothing regarding IRA and precious metals.
• You can add value to your existing SDIRA by purchasing another gold and silver bullion set from Goldco.
• They can offer you to buy again the precious metals you have purchased from them at a guaranteed high price.
• Goldco is known for sending helpful articles full of knowledge about almost everything regarding retirement accounts.

Cons

• There has been a rare occasion when Goldco promises free silver incentives when you open a Gold IRA account with them, where you need to purchase premium silver first.
• Some customers report sudden drops (60% loss) when checking out their retirement funds.

Birch Gold Corporation: Great Staff Overall (4.5/5)

Star Rating

Feel safer with Birch Gold Group, which has been in the physical precious metals and financial services industry for nearly two decades. This company, which started in 2003, has continuously provided help for customers to diversify their retirement accounts through Gold and other precious metals.

The company is located in Burbank, California, across the street from Warner Bros. Studios, where their team of former commodity brokers, financial advisors, and wealth managers render service to a diverse set of Americans.

As indicated by our tests, this company’s rigorous standards can be seen from the pros and cons listed below.

Pros

• The company is named one of the largest and most trusted providers of precious metals by Newsmax after two decades of satisfying the customers’ need for SDIRAs.
• This precious metals dealer boasts its mission of educating customers about the benefits of self-directed precious metal IRAs and the risks they might encounter.
• Birch Gold Group will assign you a specialist who will care for your needs while setting up your SDIRA on precious metals and your questions to cater to your specific needs to help you achieve your goal.
• The company takes your trust seriously by providing you with a guide to recognizing financial scams so that you can be more mindful while taking further steps in setting up your retirement account.

Cons

• Reviews show that Birch Gold could buy your purchased Gold and other precious metals at a lower price than you paid.
• Birch Gold employees might lead you into something risky for you, and it is up to you if you would take the plunge.

What is a Self-Directed IRA (SDIRA)?

Unlike a traditional or Roth IRA, a self-directed Individual Retirement Account is an investment strategy that gives you great control over your retirement portfolio. With an SDIRA, you can diversify your portfolio even more to get higher retirement funds.

This type of IRA is supervised by a financial institution specializing in self-directed accounts to give freedom to the customers in handling their retirement accounts.

These institutions also allow IRA owners to invest not just in traditional paper assets but also in precious physical metals like physical gold, palladium bullion, and collectible silver coins. A self-directed IRA custodian will guide you throughout the entire process.

Benefits of a Self-Directed Precious Metals IRA

Along with the freedom to invest in non-paper assets like precious metals, one can get several benefits.

Diversification

You can diversify your retirement portfolio by investing in different kinds of precious metals, like physical Gold, in the form of bars or collectibles like Canadian Maple Leaf Coins.

Insurance

You can protect your retirement funds from unnecessary price drops because physical metals do not necessarily decrease their value.

Hedge Against Inflation

Precious metals are a hedge against inflation because it leans towards the opposite side of the ever-fluctuating currency of paper assets. In our economy, cash could suddenly have a drop in purchasing power, and stock prices might also get lower prices.

Control

Because you are self-directing your account, you have the utmost authority on decisions and transactions that will affect the course of your retirement funds.

Growth Potential

Gold, among the other precious metals, had been performing well during shaky financial crises. The growth potential for tangible assets, especially during economic turbulence, is still foreseeable.

Tax Advantages

SDIRA owners can enjoy tax advantages that can save them a lot of money because precious metals IRAs are taxed like traditional gold IRAs.

What Types of Accounts Can Be Self-Directed?

Different types of retirement accounts can be self-directed, and as an IRA owner, you should know that all IRAs are the same in the eyes of the IRS. It falls in your investment strategy of handling several different IRAs.

As such, the following accounts can be directed by your own:

• Traditional
• Roth
• Simplified Employee Pension (SEP)
• Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE)
• Individual 401(K)
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• depoEducation Savings Account (ESA)

What are the Rules for Self-Directed IRAs?

There are three top rules that investors should know about when handling or opening a self-directed gold IRA. These are the investment restrictions, disqualified persons, and prohibited transactions.

Even with the freedom to choose what asset you want to invest in, you are still restricted to choosing life insurance, S corporations, and collectibles. Some coins not meeting IRS rules in precious metals cannot be invested.

There is also a list of disqualified persons you cannot transact with regarding your self-directed IRA account. This includes your spouse, lineal descendants, IRA custodians, and others. If proven that you transacted with a disqualified person, the IRS can incur some penalties.

Prohibited transactions with disqualified persons might be selling a property, loaning money, furnishing goods or services, and transferring mutual funds to them. These categories of transactions are prohibited, so make sure to stay away from these kinds of operations.

How to Get Started with a Precious Metals IRA?

1. You first need to find your most trusted SDIRA provider by researching their performance, customer service, and integrity in the field. Also, ensure they provide the type of asset you plan to invest in.
2. Be concise with your investment strategy and choose a well-fitting type of SDIRA account that will suit your needs and goals.
3. Open your account physically or online by submitting all the necessary legal documents.
4. At this point, you already have an account, and you need to fund it with some money either from transferring from an existing IRA or rollover a 401(k) from a late employer.
5. You can start investing in your chosen asset with the funds in your newly opened account.
6. Always learn about SDIRA and the status of physical precious metals and other assets in the economy to be kept updated whether you are financially safe or you need to do some actions.

Final Thoughts – Self Directed Precious Metal IRA

Augusta outranks other presented companies above in terms of customer empowerment, employees’ prowess to educate, consecutive 5-star performance ratings, and top-notch and informative video content.

The company is led by someone with enough expertise in this field, so it ensures that their service quality is also top-notch while encouraging people like you to diversify your retirement savings through gold and silver.

The other companies might also be offering informative video content. Still, Augusta goes the other way by providing educational clips about the lies or gimmicks that other competitors might mislead you with.

Through our trial and error, we discovered that Noble Gold also considers seamless processes as a serious matter by ensuring that you will get a personal agent to educate you about financial information that is not easy to find.

They also have a portfolio-building assistance desk where you can consult an Augusta product professional. The company will also be with you 95% of the time while processing your account to provide a straightforward account application.

In conclusion, Augusta Precious Metals combines expertise, experience, and client-friendly customer service to provide a high-quality performance regarding self-directed precious metal IRA.