I don’t know if your 401(k) is with a current employer; if so, there’s not a lot of choice. But if you ever leave that job or have 401(k)s from previous employers, you can open a precious metals IRA where you can buy physical gold, silver, platinum, palladium. Sterling Trust is a trustee for these types of IRAs (there are others). You take your 401(k) funds, deposit with the trustee, (or roll the funds over directly to the trustee), then use a precious metals dealer to actually purchase the metals - they invoice your trustee and you now have gold or silver held in an insured warehouse. You can even pay extra for segregated accounts where the metals aren’t mixed in with others’ but held in a special vault dedicated to your holdings. Another thing to check into is the Perth Mint Certificate Program. This is an Australian government mint which sells metals at spot plus 2-1/2%. You store it at their site if desired, or you can sell metals back to them when you want and take a check, or you can have the metals shipped to you. Most precious metals dealers can work with the Perth Mint. I used Asset Strategies Intl., but there are lots of others. I’d rather have all my metals in my physical possession, but since I’m not yet 59-1/2, I can’t take money out of my IRAs without paying a penalty. So rather than let it sit in cash or bonds, I decided to go this route and I’m really glad I did.
Well, there’s gold and silver, but what about oil and other commodities (via indexes and ETFs)? If there are issues with currencies and/or if the stimulus plans turn inflationary, these should all rise. Right now they are all artificially beaten down (although oil just snapped upward about 20% in the past few days).
There was an interesting clip with Jim Rogers talking about this that Davos posted last week. He said he was not sure which commodities would do best, but that they should all do well against the dollar long-term.
As weak as my research skills are I do hold Wikepedia in high regards and according to them Canadian Maple Leaf Coins are made of 100% canadian mined gold as stated at the end of the 1st paragraph in the article
Ruhh: I stand corrected. Numerous sites seem to confirm your claim.
It’s interesting to note that fact. It appears that the American gold eagle is made from gold mined exclusively in America. Wow. This level of accountability seems almost a little odd given the globalized market of this commodity.
Yes, that was the one. Interesting how this guy has essentially "given up" on the U.S. – especially the dollar – and has decamped to Asia. He is like the Warren Buffett of commodities with a very long track record and is not someone you want to ignore.
SolarJoe, I’d like to get your email address to talk to you about how you set up a sustainable "farm" so to speak. I’m very interested in doing the same and am not sure where to start. Since you have already "forged ahead", it might lessen my learning curve. My email is keithhowell@sbcglobal.net. Thanks.
Thanks for the link - that has cleared things up a fair bit. I’m quite happy to accept that commercially produced meat is best avoided for a number of reasons, but there is a place for the good old home grown variety.
What about those of us with money held prisoner in a 401K that only
offers stock mutual funds for investment options? What can we do???
Is there any chance you can move them? I know it’s a pain, but it’s worth it if you happen to be locked into a plain-vanilla universe of long-only funds.
What I did with my 401K holdings is I consolidated and moved them all a Rydexfunds IRA account.
There I enjoy a pretty full range of investing options as you could at many other places. I am neither steering you towards nor away from Rydexfunds…that’s just who I happen to use.
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Chris, did you look into the financial safety of the company behind Rydex? I am using Rydex funds too, but I’m a bit concerned about the downgrades and negative ratings outlook of Security Benefit Corporation. Its Comdex score is only around 59 now. I would prefer a Comdex score above 90 (on the 100 point scale), but I’m planning to stay with Rydex because I don’t know of a better option (given the restrictions on where I can move my funds). I would love to be more informed about their financial safety because I will likely be in Rydex funds for the next decade or more.