The Best Way to Buy Gold in 2020

Long coveted by collectors and traders alike, gold has developed a new significance as the modus operandi for folks who have their eyes open and want to protect themselves from the fallout of disaster scenarios like the collapse of central banks, worldwide pandemics, or widespread warfare. Savvy investors looking to bolster investment portfolios or prepare themselves for retirement are also turning to the gold market. For the uninitiated, there’s one main question that needs answering before they, too, can avail themselves of physical gold: how do you go about getting it?

There are many ways to buy gold or get involved in the gold market. Some of these methods are designed for those who want to purchase gold for safekeeping and see their own gold in person. Others, like gold stocks, are for those who want to buy gold without personally receiving any physical gold. It all depends on what sort of future you’re preparing for and how you want to prepare for it. 

Market disasters like a stock market crash can drive down the value of fiat currencies.

Whether you want to buy gold bullion or rarer metals like platinum and palladium, it’s easy to buy them on the internet and even have them stored off-site away from your personal residence in secure vaults located all over the world. Traditional gold shops and safe deposit boxes are another way to make and store tangible gold investments. 

Physical gold can be purchased in the form of coins minted from an official government mint, or there are also products called gold rounds that are about the same size as coins but are manufactured by private mints, have no face value, and are not accepted as legal tender. To make a gold investment without purchasing any physical gold, financial tools like gold mining stocks, gold mutual funds, and investments like the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) are available.

For stock trading with the diversification of mutual funds, gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) make great investments. However, there is great debate about the risk of buying paper gold through an ETF… how can you truly rely on this method during a financial crash? 

For all their current mismanagement and possible malfeasances, federal mints also put out gold coins and rounds that can be collected out of numismatic interest or added to personal stocks of gold investors. The most popular coins are the American Eagle Bullion Coins produced by the U.S. Mint; the Royal Canadian Mint’s Canadian Maple Leaf Bullion Coins; the Krugerrand from South Africa, which was the original modern bullion coin; the Philharmonic Bullion Coins from the Austrian Mint; and the Kangaroo Bullion Coins from the Perth Mint in Australia. The Chinese Mint also makes Panda Bullion Coins that are very popular. All of these bullion coins are minted in gold but  may also be obtained in silver, palladium, and platinum in bulk or as graded numismatic collectible coins and coin sets.

Navigating all of these options can be hard to do without a dedicated broker guiding the way. Luckily, GSI Exchange offers gold bullion and also has a wealth of information (even a podcast) available to make decisions about personal investments and preserving buying power in turbulent times. Keep reading for a complete guide to buying gold in 2020.

Why Invest in Gold?

State-backed fiat currencies are subject to huge value swings resulting from wars and war funding, like Germany in late 1923, or huge shifts in global finance like the shortage of U.S. dollars amidst the coronavirus crisis in early 2020. When fiat currency is backed up by a commodity, there can be collapses of confidence where owners of the currency can rush to exchange it for the commodity. Before Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard in 1971, that backup commodity across much of the world was gold. 

In the event of a collapse of one sector of the global economy where there is still a system for trading precious metals, owning gold bars or gold bullion can be useful. Should things somehow stay closer to the present-day way of doing things, diversifying an investment portfolio or retirement IRA with gold futures, gold stocks, and other gold investments can make for a comfortable retirement and ensure stability in the event of a long-term job loss for any reason. Collectible gold coins and other products can also be a fun way to buy physical gold for hobbyists and for lasting gifts to children and grandchildren.

Read: World Oldest Gold Dealer Scotia Bank Closes Its Metals Business

How to Buy Gold on the Internet

There are many unique ways to make gold investments on the internet. For instance:

1. Buy physical gold through an online broker that’s delivered to your door.
2. Invest in mutual funds, gold ETFs, gold futures, the stock market, etc.
3. Convert an existing IRA into a Precious Metals IRA

Buying gold on the internet in any of these ways gives more privacy, reduces the risk of walking in public with lots of your own gold on your person, and can be done 24/7 via various websites. You might have to wait for someone to respond, but the internet is always available, making it convenient, especially for purchasing international assets, which everyone should be doing to ensure investment portfolio diversity.

When buying physical gold, make sure to look at the purity rating.

How to Buy Gold Through an Online Broker

Online brokers vary in the products they offer, how they deliver gold, and what kind of deals they can offer on security, delivery fees, and order minimums. On GSI, buying gold is as easy as selecting a gold coin and going through a standard checkout process. Here’s what you should look for in an online broker:

Wide Inventory

The U.S. Mint and other sellers of gold bullion make plenty of limited mintages in addition to famous coins like the American Eagle. It’s important to choose an online broker like GSI that keeps a constant eye on the gold market to find the best coins and bullion that will have the greatest value as a savior for bank accounts that have been gutted and devalued by the robber baron central banks. 

Whether that’s the Gold American Eagle or the Great Britain Rose Crown Guinea, GSI has a wide selection that’s frequently updated to include the most lucrative collectible gold coins for retirement accounts and personal wealth stores. There are also other precious metals for sale such as silver. 

Read:Most Dealers Sold Out of Physical Gold Inventories - Not GSI Exchange

An Easy to Use Quote Process

Whether you want to buy gold soon, open a gold IRA, or get a quote, it’s as easy as registering for free on the GSI website. Many other sites will try to obfuscate their true motives through opaque registration processes, offering little to no information upfront and leaving buyers completely in the dark. Buying physical gold is a preparation for the looming catastrophe and it’s important that you know exactly what kind of position you’ll be in; any website you use should be clear and easy to use. 

Delivery Fees

Some websites will have a separate display price that’s completely different from the final price. That’s because they include fees for delivery and other processing fees. While some big sites may offer free shipping on orders over certain amounts, they often only mean free shipping to the storage facility owned or controlled by their company. 

Not only are these thresholds for free shipping often high, anywhere from $500 to $5,000, but they also might involve additional fees like a ‘gold certification’ that will cost extra in order to have things stored at their facility. Maybe you can go visit your gold in some far-away city like Hong Kong or Singapore, but it’s nothing compared to having your own gold where you can hold it in the palm of your hand and get to it in a sudden emergency.

GSI offers free shipping on orders made on the website with no strings attached. For transparent purchasing and assurance that you know exactly what you’re getting without tons of hidden fees, that’s exactly what you need.

Reputation

Reputation is very important when it comes to gold investments on the internet. No matter what shape they take, investments take careful consideration and trust plays a large role in the purchase of gold. Online reviews can be a great way to see what previous customers think about a gold brokerage, but one of the best indicators is a rating from long-established and trusted consumer-protection companies like the Better Business Bureau. Their rating takes into account how long the business has been open, whether any complaints have been filed against the company and, if so, how many, and other issues known to the BBB. In short, it’s everything you'd need to know about the reputation of a business.

On GSI, it’s simple and easy to ask for more information and order physical gold that’s delivered right to the buyer. Clients always get what they ask for without any hassle, which is why the Better Business Bureau has given it an A+ rating. We also have a AAA rating from the Business-Consumer Alliance, among other awards and certifications.

Even cold hard cash can be devalued by central banks and wind up being worthless.

How to Make Gold Investments

Investing in Gold Mutual Funds or Gold ETFs doesn’t involve the purchase of physical gold. Rather, investments like mutual funds usually play the stock market, buying shares in mining companies. Returns on these kinds of gold investments are never sure since they’re tied to the discovery of physical gold and other precious metals rather than the price of gold, but they are nice to have for long-term performance in an investment portfolio. 

Gold ETFs don’t involve gold mining stocks, although they are still traded on stock markets. ETFs are a collection of different securities that trade on markets like a stock, rather than trading once a day after the market closes like mutual funds do. There are tons of ETFs with different underlying assets like bonds, commodities, or currencies. Some Exchange Traded Notes, which have bonds issued by banks as their underlying assets, function like ETFs but are not the same at all. 

There are many more specific types of investments in gold futures and more particular areas of the gold market that can make fine additions to an investment portfolio. If you want to begin this way, it’d be wise to check out our Definitive Guide to Precious Metals Investment. The best assurance will come from purchasing physical gold and steering well clear of the stock market and the false value it creates.

In the end, just like bank accounts, standard stock market investment accounts and portfolios aren’t going to be accessible when the crisis is in full swing. ETFs might be likely to perform better, but assets like gold mining stocks aren’t guaranteed to do anything - and their payout is going to be based on the dollar. When that gets devalued, all stocks are going to be so much paper, just like they were on Black Tuesday. To be truly prepared, any investment you make should be based in real, physical gold.  

Read: Gold Prices Pressured by Global Run on Reserves

Hedging a Bet with Gold Futures

Now, that’s certainly not to say that all investments aren’t worthwhile. While the machine is still running, it’s wise to try and grow your money so that you can procure more precious metals while things are still relatively calm. One way you can do this is by hedging the gold and silver that you own. 

Anyone can tell you that the price of gold fluctuates like anything else. That doesn’t mean its value fluctuates, but rather that the dollar’s value does and that means gold is worth a different number of dollars from minute to minute. You can protect the precious metals you already own by purchasing gold futures or options on them. 

What is a Precious Metals IRA?

Individual retirement accounts are offered by many financial institutions to offer tax-free or tax-deferred savings for retirement. IRAs can be built up with ‘rollover’ contributions from other qualified retirement accounts like a 401(k) or from money deducted on tax returns that will be taxed later upon withdrawal. There are also Roth IRAs, a special kind of account where contributions are made with money that has already had taxes paid on it, making growth in the account and later withdrawal also tax-free for more peace of mind. 

Since 1997, IRAs have been allowed to invest directly in physical gold via something called a Gold IRA. A Gold IRA, like any precious metal IRA, is an IRA that’s self-guided and invests in gold and other precious metals like silver and palladium. Gold IRAs often move in the opposite direction as IRAs based on paper assets, since people flock to exchange their dollars for gold in situations where the dollar is devalued. It’s smart to have a gold IRA for diversification, hedging against devaluation, and for protection when the dollar eventually sinks for good.

Gold bullion is the most common way to invest in physical gold.

Converting an Existing IRA to a Precious Metals IRA

Although it’s not an easy process to do on your own, converting all or part of an IRA is a fantastic way to buy precious metals in the form of gold coins or gold bullion and makes the assets you’ll have for retirement more definite since you’ll have physical gold that is completely under your control. Luckily, GSI has IRA experts available by phone and a free IRA guide available for download that can illuminate the entire process more fully. In their infinite wisdom, the gods of finance have crafted a process that’s intentionally difficult to understand, but GSI can explain how to free yourself from this system with your own gold.

Final Verdict:

Buying gold is definitely the smart move given the current state of the world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Financial systems are in uncharted waters, and there are two things one can safely bet about that situation: Institutions like the Fed are going to muck it up and gold is going to weather the storm. 

Updating your planned retirement investment accounts, like IRAs or 401(k)s, to contain more physical gold is going to shield you better from market upheavals and the eventual devaluation of the dollar. It can be hard to understand, but a dedicated specialist can guide you through the process.

Read: Global Events have Bridgewater Billionaire Endorsing Gold And Selling Stocks

The best way to buy gold is to buy physical gold you can hold onto and use when the central banks decide to pull the rug out from under us. There are many suspect ways to buy physical gold in person at shops that add lots of great personal risk since anybody can see when you exit a gold shop, possibly with gold on your person. Additionally, many of these shops are pop-ups that come into town to rip people off and disappear. Buying precious metals is much safer and way easier online.

Thankfully there are many ways to get your hands on some gold using the GSI website. Our online brokers are the safest option, plus you have 24-hour access to our shop and a wider selection. A gold investment is a smart one and while it’s never too soon to make it, it’d be wise to make moves before it is too late.