Retirement is not an age. It’s a financial state of being. If you can survive on the passive income, produced by your investments, then you can retire comfortably. That state isn’t regulated to people who been on the earth for 65 years, working away. No, by investing your capital wisely, retirement could be a mere block down the street. Gold tends to stabilize portfolios when other equities are depreciating, like during a market downturn. Top that off with an IRA’s tax advantages, and you’ve got a stupendous investment vehicle.
Fundamentals of Precious Metals IRAs
- Assests Backed by Commodities:
Commodities store value in a different way than other investments, such as stocks. Commodities, including gold, hold value because they exist in limited quantities. As such, the more people want them, the more valuable they become. Scarcity supplies plenty of its own demand. - Outside of the Equities Market:
Imagine how it must have felt for those who held large positions in mortgage-backed securities in 2007. At that time, it seemed as though nothing could have been a sure bet. Yet, within a few months, the whole world had turned upside down. Anyone who had bought gold between 2007 and 2008 experienced something much different. - Available Without Any Negative Tax Implications
Shaving a few dollars off the tax bill would have the same effect on your net worth as earning more. Therefore, leveraging assets by putting them in tax-advantaged accounts could be thought of as a way to boost your income. Since you’ll be doing more with the same money, it’d be more or less the same outcome.
Monetary Policy and Your Retirement
The Federal Reserve has recently discontinued its weekly update to our nation’s M1 and M2 money supply stats. While we’ve still got the monthly updates, such a lack of transparency is disturbing many institutional investors. Fears of inflation have become something at the forefront of all financial planner’s minds.
Over the last 4 years, the Fed has printed well over half of all the dollars that have ever been print in history.
Inflation tends to lag. So, with that in mind, millions have shifted their sights to something more tangible. Gold seems like it might be what this moment is calling for. Scarce and historied, gold has been a tremendous symbol of wealth since antiquity. Such a long history gives us a wealth of statistics, teeming with insights.
Whenever There’s Inflation, Gold Holds Its Value
Dollars are only as valuable as people believe they are. For each dollar print by the Federal Reserve, the total supply dilutes, diminishing the dollar’s purchasing power. These changes are imperceptible during our daily lives. Yet, if you had to spend what you spend on groceries today two decades ago, you would’ve been outraged.
Gold Can’t Be Print:
Why is it that the dollar always loses value? Because our national monetary policy requires us to print endless supplies of it. Printing gold isn’t something that’s in the cards. So, we’re stuck with the stuff we’ve dug out of the ground. Fortunately, since that’s such a limited supply, demand is always soaring. In other words, since we can’t make more gold, it doesn’t lose its value.
Taxes, IRAs, and Making the Most of Your Portfolio
How Do Taxes Work for Retirement?
- Tax Deferred:
IRAs are a type of tax-deferred investment account. Anything you put in them won’t be subject to standard taxes. Instead, you can fund these using your pre-tax income, optimizing your cash flow. You’ll pay taxes on these funds once you withdraw them from the account. - Tax Free:
Certain investments qualify for complete tax avoidance. However, you’ve got to fulfill specific requirements. 401(k)s are some of the most popular examples of these types of accounts. Assuming you wait till maturity, you can avoid paying taxes on them entirely.
Historically, Precious Metals Have Been Among the Most Valuable Assets of All
Finance is a notoriously tricky world to navigate. Finding your way without the wisdom of mentors would be rather foolish. Yet, many of these so-called experts fail to outperform the market, losing as many calls as they win.
History offers us some perspective.
Often, the way financial markets have performed in the past can be indicative of future performance. As per www.goldiras101.com, precious metals have earned their name for a reason. People, from all eras, have known that its scarcity created a market.
- Silver Was Given to Legionaries During the Pax Romana:
The Denarius was the US dollar of the Ancient World. From one side of the Mediterranean to the other, merchants and laborers conducted their trade using them.
Above all, these silver coins became symbolic of the Imperial Legions.
Flung across the empire, these soldiers stimulated the economy, spending denarii as though they were sailors in port. Even today, some of these ancient coins can be dug up in small towns dotting the European countryside. - Even During the Crisis of the Third Century, Patricians Would Hoard Their Gold:
Not all of Roman history is filled with tales of glory.
After the Punic Wars eliminated Carthage, establishing a new hegemony, Roman rulers became disconnected from their monetary policy choices.
In the 3rd Century, the world saw one of the first epidemics of hyperinflation, as the Denarius was rapidly debased. Within 20 years, the value of the Denarii had fallen by more than 50%. Yet, gold still held its value.
In fact, since the Patricians had known about the Denarius’s falling value, gold became even more appealing.
Stashing away most of the nation’s gold only further compounded problems for the Plebs Urbana, the working men and women of the empire. As a result of their frenzied hoarding, the Patricians made gold even rarer than it had been a few decades prior.
Consequently, they concentrated the Republic’s wealth into the hands of only a few, sowing the seeds of a revolutionary transition.
Not long after, the Republic was no more. From then on, the Roman Empire dominated the scene. - What Can We Learn from This?
History is full of tales like these. Yet, a common thread weave between them all. In each of these instances, people who had the foresight to stockpile gold came out on top. Others who had not taken such preemptive actions would be left to far different fates. If investing in gold preserved a family’s wealth then, what makes things any different now? Unless people stop craving it, gold ought to always be great at wealth preservation.
Why a Gold IRA Could Be Ideal for Your Plans
Avoiding taxes should be something everyone plans for. Otherwise, you’d have to work even more to get the same results. That wouldn’t make much sense, especially considering how easy they are to avoid. Opening an IRA is all that you need if you’d like to avoid them. Plus, with the right type of IRA, you can expose your portfolio to precious metals. That way, if they happen to appreciate, you’ll jump for joy.
Plus, good retirements start by leveraging your assets effectively.
Letting those funds track the S&P 500 might provide an average return, but it won’t break any records. Diversifying into precious metals hedges against more than just inflation. It’d also provide a nice cushion in case there was a stock market crash, sending equities tumbling.