A gold IRA is a self-managed individual retirement account that invests in both physical gold and other precious metals. A gold IRA often has higher fees than a traditional IRA or Roth IRA, which invests exclusively in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. If you want to hold physical gold in an IRA, it can’t be your regular account. It must be a separate, special IRA, called a Gold IRA.
Gold and other precious metals are just one of the many things you can buy with a Roth Gold IRA. 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. A key selling point that gold IRA companies like to tout in their marketing is that if you own a gold IRA, you own the physical precious metals. A gold IRA company will help you set up your account and sell you the gold (or silver) coins or bars that fund it.
The IRS does not allow popular gold coins such as the South African Krugerrand or British sovereign coins to be stored in a gold IRA. Before you initiate the transfer, it’s important to calculate how much of your existing retirement savings you’d like to invest in your new Gold IRA. Unless you have multiple retirement accounts, it would be very risky to convert your entire balance into a gold IRA. Your custodian bank can refer you to an approved institution and process the gold transfer as part of setting up your Gold IRA.
You’ll also need to choose a precious metals dealer who will make the actual gold purchases for your IRA (your custodian may be able to recommend one for you). As a result, gold IRAs require the use of a custodian bank, usually a bank or brokerage firm, to manage the account. If you’re considering a Roth Gold IRA as part of your retirement plan, you should look around for your IRA company. Your chosen Gold IRA company will help you get started by reaching out to your plan administrator with a request to transfer funds to your new Gold IRA.
Orion Metal Exchange is a California-based company that offers gold IRAs and a wide variety of precious metals, coins, and gold bars. Remember that not every self-governing IRA custodian bank offers the same investment options. So make sure that physical gold is among their offerings before you open an account. In a regular IRA, you can’t own physical gold, although you can invest in a wide variety of assets that are invested in gold, such as stocks of gold mining companies or exchange-traded gold funds (ETFs). Most gold IRA companies recommend or require that you work with a specific custodian and custodian, although some give you a choice of two or more.
