Adding gold to your IRA may seem like an extremely complex endeavor, but it’s actually quite a bit easier than one may think. With the help of professionals, you can begin to enjoy your new IRA investments sooner than you’d think.
The first step towards investing in gold and other precious metals is to establish a self-directed IRA. With a self-directed IRA, you are able to make all of your own investment decisions as opposed to others deciding where your IRA funds will be invested. A self-directed IRA can be a traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or one of several other types.
If you have a pre-existing IRA, you can keep it where it is or roll it over to the new account. If you have an existing IRA, you’ll need to speak with your IRA custodian to ensure that you can add gold bullion to it – unfortunately, not all plans have this option available. If you don’t have this option available, you’ll need to open a new account that has this capability. You can fund your IRA with cash, contributions, rollover contributions, transfers from other IRAs, or direct rollovers from other qualifying plans (pension plans, thrift savings plans, 401k profit sharing, etc).
Once the account is properly funded, you can then instruct your IRA to buy gold builion or various other precious metals. This will usually consist of an account executive or financial consultant making recommendations about how much of your portfolio should be invested in gold and precious metals. After these decisions have been finalized, you can then add gold bullion and precious metals to your IRA.