Gold Ira Basics

 So, what's the final verdict in this American Hartford Gold review? With a great reputation, a range of gold and silver investments to choose from, and a buyback commitment, this company is popular among investors. You will need to pay some depository fees, and you'll have to contact the company’s customer service to discover the gold prices. American Hartford Gold is a good choice for investors who want to diversify their wealth portfolio with gold investments.

 California-based Oxford Gold Group has been operating since 2018, and the company's founders have over two decades of experience in the precious metals industry. The firm sells investment-grade precious metals and offers precious metal IRA retirement accounts. Oxford Gold Group also maintains BBB accreditation and an A+ rating, with thousands of positive customer reviews.

 Oxford Gold Group offers investors two different options for storing a precious metal IRYou can choose between the Brinks Depository in Salt Lake City, Utah, or the Delaware Depository in Wilmington, Delaware.

 What's the outcome of this Oxford Gold Group review? The firm is relatively new, but it offers convenient investment services and a great selection of precious metals. Expect higher fees than other companies, and you only have the option of two different IRA custodians. However, it does have an excellent reputation and BBB rating. Ultimately, the Oxford Gold Group is a good choice for investing in precious metals and diversifying your wealth portfolio.

 Augusta Precious Metals is a premier gold IRA company founded by Joe Montana, a hall of fame quarterback, and his team of financial advisors. This company has received thousands of five-star rankings since 2012 and has won several awards for its IRA services.

 Augusta Precious Metals offers gold IRAs and cash purchases. Like the other companies on our list, Augusta Precious Metals requires you to have a qualifying IRA and roll over your funds to your new gold or silver IRA.

 First, you'll have the opportunity to talk to a live agent who can guide you in your gold or silver purchase. Your agent can also give you helpful economic guidance to educate you about precious metals IRAs.

 Next, you can create your new IRA with the help of your live agent. You'll need to have at least $50,000 available to invest in order to qualify for an Augusta Precious Metals IRA account.

 Once you've created your account, you'll need to fund it with money from your existing retirement account. Then, you can buy gold or silver by submitting an order from Augusta's order desk.

 Augusta also allows you to buy physical gold and silver outside of an IRIf you choose to go this route, you can still receive guidance from the company's gold and silver professionals, free and secure delivery, and complete control over your precious metal assets. You'll simply need to follow these steps to buy gold or silver directly:

 Augusta sells a range of gold and silver bullion and coins that you can purchase directly or use to fund your IRThese gold and silver products include:

 Augusta works with trustworthy custodians such as Equity Trust, Gold Star Trust Company, and Kingdom Trust who can administer your new IRAdditionally, Augusta can serve as your liaison with your custodian, giving you access to the custodian at any time.

 The Augusta Precious Metals website also includes a video resource library filled with helpful videos from Delvyn Steele, a Harvard-trained economist. If you're looking for insight into what's going on in the economy, these videos are an excellent resource to review.

 Overall, we recommend Augusta Precious Metals for anyone looking to open a precious metal IRA with a reputable company.

 Noble gold sells gold, silver, palladium, and platinum coins along with valuable rare coins. You can purchase these precious metals through an IRA or buy them directly through the Noble Gold website.

 This company follows a simple process to help facilitate gold IRAs for its customers. You can get started with Noble Gold by filling out an online IRA setup form. This form only takes about five minutes to complete. If you aren't sure of all the answers, the company can call you to guide you through the process of finding the necessary information.

 Next, the Noble Gold IRA team will call your new custodian to set up your account and acquire any additional paperwork you may need to complete. The company will also email you your new self-directed IRA account number.

 With Noble Gold, you can either transfer assets directly from an existing custodian to your new IRA or roll over funds into your new account. You shouldn't face any tax penalties when transferring funds from one custodian to another.

 Once you fund your account and purchase your precious metals, you can check their status at any time through Noble Gold's custodian, Equity Institutional. This custodian offers online access to your account 24/7/365.

 If you'd rather buy precious metals directly, you can take advantage of Noble Gold's Royal Survival Packs. These packs include hand-picked selections of precious metals with high levels of liquidity and recognizability. Purchasing these packs is especially helpful if you're unsure which metals to buy.

 Noble Gold offers several features that set it apart as one of the best gold IRA companies. First, this provider offers some of the best gold prices on the market and provides fast, secure shipping. Noble Gold has also received hundreds of five-star reviews from satisfied customers, allowing you to feel confident in its practices.

 Even better, Noble Gold offers a buyback program to every client. If your retirement goals or savings change over time, you can rest assured that the company will buy back any gold or other precious metals that you previously purchased.

 Overall, Noble Gold is an impressive gold IRA company that goes above and beyond to help its clients purchase profitable investments.

 You've probably heard of 401(k) and traditional IRA accounts. These retirement accounts allow you to invest in index funds, stocks, and other paper investments to fund your retirement account. However, most traditional retirement investment accounts do not allow you to invest in gold.

 That's where gold individual retirement accounts (IRAs) come in.

 Gold IRAs are specialized individual retirement accounts that hold precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum, or palladium. Like traditional IRAs, these accounts typically allow for pre-tax contributions and have similar income and contribution limits.

 However, unlike traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, which hold paper assets, gold IRAs contain physical precious metals. When you purchase precious metals through a gold IRA, you must store them outside your home, with a custodian, and in a secure depository.

 A reputable gold IRA company, such as one from our list, can help you facilitate your gold purchase and walk you through the steps of opening your new gold IRA account. These companies know the ins and outs of IRS rules for retirement accounts, giving you the guidance you need to maintain a profitable portfolio. Many gold IRA companies also partner with custodians.

 Investing in gold IRA accounts can provide numerous benefits for your retirement goals. Gold often provides more stable growth than paper assets, allowing you to diversify your portfolio while minimizing volatility.

 Additionally, gold IRAs come with unique tax benefits. Your contributions and gains are not taxable, and in many cases, your contributions may also be tax-deductible.

 All in all, investing in a gold IRA is a wise option to consider if you're looking to stabilize and diversify your portfolio. You can also consider a gold IRA rollover, in which you transfer funds from your existing IRA to a gold IRWe'll discuss this concept more below.

 How we ranked the top gold investment companies

 If you're looking to open a gold IRA or other precious metals IRAs, it's essential to use a reputable, trustworthy company to facilitate the process. Gold IRA investments can be expensive and choosing a questionable provider may be a costly mistake.

 How we ranked the top gold investment companies

 When we chose the five best gold IRA companies to add to our list, we searched for a range of factors that indicate that a company is reliable, knowledgeable, and reputable. Specifically, we examined the following factors while creating our list.

 Companies typically develop positive or negative reputations for a reason. When searching for a gold investment company to facilitate your IRA, choosing one with a positive industry reputation can ensure that you have a positive experience overall.

 One way to evaluate a company's reputation is to look the company up through the Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau is an organization that allows consumers to write reviews and, often, complaints of businesses online. The Better Business Bureau also rates organizations on a scale from A+ to F, with A+ being the best rating.

 When we chose the five best gold IRA companies to add to our list, we examined each company's Better Business Bureau reviews and ratings. The companies that made our list all have B or higher BBB ratings and tend to have more positive gold IRA reviews than negative ones.

 Reliable precious metal IRA companies do everything they can to gain new clients, including making the setup process as easy and stress-free as possible. These companies allow new clients to set up gold IRAs within a few days or less and offer qualified assistance from investment professionals.

 The gold IRA companies that made our list feature easy setup processes. These companies also allow you to talk with a specialist directly throughout your account-opening process, ensuring that you can quickly receive the guidance you need.

 Most gold IRA companies charge fees for their services. These fees cover the costs involved in opening your account, maintaining your account over time, and securely holding your precious metals.

 If you come across an IRA company that offers its services for free, you may not be able to trust that it will put the necessary expertise and time into facilitating a reliable gold IRAdditionally, companies offering free services often do not provide the additional assistance and knowledge you would receive from a higher quality company.

 On the other end of the spectrum, companies that charge outrageously high fees may not be trustworthy either. These companies may be more focused on maximizing profits than providing quality services for customers.

 When we chose the gold IRA companies to add to this list, we focused on organizations that charge reasonable fees for their services.

 One of the reasons many people choose to open gold IRAs is to diversify their investment portfolios. As a result, it makes sense to work with a gold IRA company that offers a diverse selection of gold, silver, and other precious metal products.

 Some of the companies on our list only offer silver and gold coins but provide an extensive selection of each coin type. Other companies allow you to invest in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium in coins or bars. Additionally, one of the companies on our list—Regal Assets—also allows you to invest in cryptocurrencies.

 You can feel confident that all the companies that made our list offer a varied selection of precious metal products.

 If you're unsure what type of precious metal to purchase within an IRA or feel hesitant about the process, you may want to work with a company that offers potential buybacks. These companies allow clients to sell their precious metals back to the companies without incurring additional fees.

 Most of the gold IRA companies on our list do not allow you to open a gold IRA from scratch. Instead, these companies require you to either transfer funds from an existing IRA or withdraw funds from an existing account and deposit them in a new IRThis latter option is known as a gold IRA rollover.

 IRA rollovers must conform to specific rules and regulations from the IRS. For example, if you choose to roll over funds from an IRA, you cannot hold those funds in your account for longer than 60 days before investing them into a new IRIn contrast, if you were to facilitate an IRA transfer, the funds would never touch your bank account before being transferred to your new IRA.

 Rolling over an IRA is a more involved process than transferring funds from one IRA to another. However, rollovers tend to be faster than transfers, taking place in 60 days or less in most instances. The companies on our list can help you facilitate gold IRA rollovers to make the process as seamless as possible and ensure that you do not face any extra penalties due to misguidance.

 The IRS does not require a minimum investment amount when opening a gold IRHowever, many gold IRA companies have their own minimum investment requirements that you must meet to work with them. For example, Augusta Precious Metals requires clients to invest at least $50,000 when buying gold and other metals.

 Other companies have much more generous minimum investment amounts. If your existing retirement accounts have not accrued much value since you opened them, you may want to look for a gold IRA company with a low minimum investment requirement.

 Many consumers wonder whether they can set up a home storage unit for the gold they purchase through a gold IRUnfortunately, when you invest in a gold IRA, you cannot keep the physical gold bullion at home.

 Instead, the IRS requires gold IRA investors to keep their gold with an IRS-approved custodian, such as a bank, credit union, or other financial institution.

 If you choose to ignore this rule and keep your gold at home, your gold will qualify as a distribution, meaning that you may face a 10% tax penalty. Additionally, you'll need to pay income taxes on the distribution, lowering the overall value you receive from the gold.

 Even worse, storing your gold investment at home could lead to a tax audit, which may necessitate additional penalties from the IRS.

 If you'd prefer to own gold and store it wherever you want, you may want to buy gold bullion directly from one of the gold IRA providers on our list. These companies can ship your gold right to your door and provide insurance to reduce risk during transit. Once you receive this gold, you can keep it at home, store it with a custodian, or do whatever you want with it.

 As we mentioned earlier, the metals you purchase for an IRA investment must meet specific IRS standards for quality and purity. Gold, platinum, and palladium must be 99.5% pure, while silver must be 99.9% pure.

 The IRS recognizes certain gold bullion and other precious metal coins as meeting these requirements. For example, the IRS accepts the following gold coins for gold IRAs:

 First, most IRA providers charge an initial account setup fee that covers the work involved in creating your investment account. This fee typically ranges from $50 to $150. However, some companies waive this fee for larger investment deposits.

 Next, many IRA companies charge an annual administrative fee that covers the cost of keeping your account open year after year. This fee can range from $50 to $150 and typically correlates to the size of your account.

 Finally, you'll need to pay a storage fee to the depository that holds your investment. Some custodians charge a flat annual fee, while others base their storage fees on the amount of gold in the account.

 On top of these basic fees, IRA providers can choose whether to charge a commission for buying gold for their clients.

 Unfortunately, gold IRA fees are often steeper than traditional IRAs and 401(k) fees. However, many investors find that the benefits of gold investing make these higher fees worth the cost.

 When you open a gold IRA account, you will need to store your investment with a custodian, such as a bank. However, you can choose which custodian will hold your gold for you.

 Some gold IRA companies work with specific depositories, making it easy to transfer your investment to those facilities. However, you can choose to work with these custodians or different ones.

 Either way, we recommend asking a depository for its licenses and registrations before you trust it with your gold investment. Failing to perform these background checks may place you at risk of losing your investment entirely.

 Investing in a gold IRA is an excellent way to diversify your retirement portfolio and minimize the volatility of your assets. Thankfully, when you work with one of the reputable gold IRA companies on our list, you can take advantage of an easy setup process, work with an advisor with industry expertise, and choose from a wide selection of precious metal coins and bullion.

 If you're still unsure which IRA provider is the best gold IRA company for your needs, we recommend requesting the free booklet from each provider and comparing the benefits and drawbacks of each organization. However, because all of these companies offer similar services, you can't go wrong choosing any of them to facilitate your gold IRA investment.

 If you've been stressing about your retirement fund, investing in a gold IRA could be your answer. Check out the companies on our list today to start the process of rolling over funds from an existing retirement account to a more stable gold IRA.

 Gold IRAs cater to investors who want to diversify their wealth as they save for retirement. Precious metals like silver and gold, platinum and palladium are considered hedges against inflation and stock market volatility, gold IRAs allow you to hold these precious metals in an individual retirement account. The accounts offer the same tax benefits as IRAs invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs.

 Adding precious metals or other alternative assets to a portfolio can help reduce risk through diversification. But it’s important to keep in mind that financial advisors generally recommend allocating 5% or less of a portfolio to precious metals because gold does not pay dividends and, even with a long time horizon, gold investors have no guarantee of making money on their investment.

 The top gold IRA companies offer unbiased educational resources, investor information and responsive customer support. When choosing a reputable gold IRA company, transparency and customer feedback are important tools for evaluating what kind of experience you are likely to have. Competitive pricing is another factor, as you want to avoid those with higher fees. Easy account setup is important, too.

 We evaluated more than a dozen gold IRA companies and have highlighted the best options for investors with various needs and levels of financial sophistication. Read our gold IRA reviews and our gold IRA investing guide below to discover if one of these is the right choice to diversify your portfolio, and what you need to know before investing.

 Why We Chose It: Founded in 2012, Augusta Precious Metals gives investors a wealth of information about investing in precious metals. The company offers gold and silver investment options; it uses Delaware Depository — a popular choice among gold IRA providers — to hold customer assets such as gold coins and gold bars.

 Augusta Precious Metals has a lot of customer education on its site. Ironically enough, one of the attributes that makes this company rise to the top of our picks is its video-blog series of reasons why not to own gold. Many gold IRA companies use scare tactics or play on investors’ fear of a (highly unlikely) meltdown of the entire financial system and a wholesale collapse of U.S. currency.

 Why We Chose It: Orion Metal Exchange says it does not charge fees for setting up an account, annual maintenance or transferring funds.

 Customers can establish an account over the phone within 10 minutes. Orion says it works with all IRS-approved gold IRA custodial institutions. Online account information is available through the custodian chosen by the investor — most charge a $50 account set-up fee. Storage and insurance costs $170 a year for most gold IRAs.

 The order minimum is $5,000 — some other gold IRA companies have minimums of $50,000. Orion also offers a fee-free buyback policy.

 Why We Chose It: Most gold IRA companies have websites that lack basic information about fees and other costs. Birch Gold Group, in business since 2003, is one of the few gold IRA companies we came across that includes fees on its site. We found it had the most detail about both one-time and recurring annual fees.

 The order minimum is $5,000 — some other gold IRA companies have minimums of $50,000. Orion also offers a fee-free buyback policy.

 Birch Gold Group charges a flat-rate annual fee rather than a percentage of the account value, which could benefit large investors but might be more expensive for those with lower balances.

 The company lets customers choose between Equity Trust Company and STRATA Trust Company as the account custodian, and Delaware Depository or Brink’s Global Services for their precious metals storage.

 Why We Chose It: Oxford Gold Group offers comprehensive customer education resources and tools. Its website says customers can set up their account quickly, often within 24 hours. The company works with Delaware Depository and Brinks, and charges an annual fee of $180, according to the website.

 Oxford Gold Group has considerable resources available for new precious metals investors, including an encyclopedia of common terms like “spot price.”

 Why We Chose It: Noble Gold Investments, founded in 2016, includes an accessible blog along with a comprehensive catalog of coins and bars investors can buy.

 Real-time account information is available through the gold IRA custodian. Customers pay two annual fees: An $80 account fee and a $150 fee for insurance and segregated storage, in which customers’ holdings are stored individually rather than pooled together.

 In addition to Delaware Depository and Brinks, two well-known precious metals depositories, Noble Gold also has its own depository in the state of Texas, giving customers an additional choice for storing their precious metals.

 Why We Chose It: Advantage Gold, founded in 2014, has top-notch reviews, including nearly 1,200 reviews on TrustPilot alone. Nearly all — 98% of them — are five-star.

 The company sells gold, silver, platinum and palladium. It uses STRATA Trust Company and Equity Trust Company as gold IRA account custodians, and Brinks Depository and Delaware Depository vaults.

 Gold IRAs function much like traditional retirement accounts, but your investment is backed with gold and other precious metals, including silver, platinum and palladium. Click below to get started.

 American Hartford Gold is not on our main list because it has a larger spread between how much it pays to buy metal and how much it charges customers for that same metal than some other companies we examined.

 Red Rock Secured is not on our main list because its website doesn’t have enough information about costs and fees to make a comprehensive evaluation.

 Goldco is not on our main list because its time estimate to complete a rollover is up to two weeks, a longer period than some other companies take. There is a dearth of information about costs and fees on its website.

 Lexi Capital is not on our main list because its site says the company does not keep “regular” phone hours but requires exchanges or returns to be approved by phone within three days.