Buying gold has always been a sound investment strategy. For thousands of years, humans have traded or bartered gold for various services, promoting its monetary value in society as being of vast importance. Today, gold backs up most of our monetary systems. It’s available as bars, bouillon, coins, stocks, mining futures, and exchange traded funds. Gold can be a safe bet to diversify your portfolio, which can insulate you a bit during a recession or economic downturn. If you’re looking to branch out into buying and/or investing in gold in 2022, here are a few tips for going about it in a streamlined way.
Get It Insured
Buying gold shouldn’t require jumping through hoops or be anything complex, really. When you purchase gold, however, it is probably better to use your savings or cash instead of credit. Buying things on credit isn’t always the best move, anyway. But more importantly, you should make sure to get your gold insured. Homeowners insurance won’t really cover your goal, so you’ll want to consider a floater policy to extend to protecting your precious metals. The FDIC doesn’t cover safe deposit boxes, either, so you’ll need to insure your gold if you store it in one.
Understand The Difference Between .999 and .9999
When you’re looking to buy some gold, you’ll undoubtedly be interested in understanding its purity. The two most common numbers you’ll see are .999 and .9999. All this means is that the gold is either 99.9% or 99.99% fine. The number of carats in the gold also matters significantly. 24 carat gold is equivalent to .9999 gold, or pure gold. Conversely, 8 carat gold is only 33.3% pure, meaning . more than 60% of it is going to contain other metals or impurities. For this reason, .999 and .9999 are the higher, most desirable standards for gold bars. Prospective buyers should always buy from a reputable dealer and understand how to spot fakes. So how do you know if your gold is counterfeit or impure? It’ll likely have a noticeable discoloration
Many quality dealers will also have a certificate of authenticity available for their gold bars, testifying to their purity.
Buy A Gold Bar
For gold Investments that aren’t mutual funds or stocks, gold bars are a very popular choice. They offer several advantages over gold coins and jewelry when it comes to physical gold. To begin with, gold bars are typically easy to acquire and high volume at reasonable prices. Gold bars don’t cost nearly as much as gold coins to mint, making the premium for them much lower. That means you can buy more. You can also get larger, high weight gold bars easier. A privately minted 1 oz gold bar is a great way to get started investing in this versatile precious metal.
Keep It In Safe Storage
The compact size of gold bars makes them an ideal choice for investing in physical gold. It also means they’re a little bit easier to store than some other types of gold. That doesn’t mean that you can just throw them in a cupboard and expect them to be safe. You should definitely invest in some safe storage methods. Since you’re dealing with actual real-world physical gold, you can’t just throw it in the bank account either. The easiest ways to store your physical gold bars are to purchase a safe to keep it home, put them in a bank deposit box, or pay a third party depository to watch over and secure them.
Consider Exchange Traded Funds
If physical gold isn’t your thing, then you might want to consider exchange-traded funds or gold mining futures. Both investment options offer unique opportunities for growth and returns. ETFs don’t involve handling physical gold at all. They do allow investors to access Gold without dealing with the costs associated with physical investments. This includes reducing any markups that might come with physical gold or storage / security risks associated with the physical version. They’re easy to trade, have decent returns, and are relatively inexpensive. They might be a better bet for some investors depending on their portfolio. Ultimately, it comes down to assessing what you want from your investments and how or why you want to invest in the gold to determine what method is best for you.
