As long as you don't buy it for personal consumption, you can invest between 5 and 10% of your total portfolio in precious metals, largely as a downside hedge against the riskiest assets in your profile. The part of your portfolio that you dedicate to precious metals will depend on your sensitivity to risk. In general, we advise our clients that between 5% and 15% of their portfolio be dedicated to precious metals, such as a Gold based IRA. When looking for the best gold IRA company, thinking in terms of percentage rather than value isn't necessarily a good choice.
In fact, in the worst-case scenario of a financial crisis, you'll need absolute numbers, not percentages. Therefore, the numbers indicated above would not necessarily be appropriate. In fact, the lower your overall net worth, the less significant the percentages will be. Precious metals have been prized for their beauty and scarcity for millennia. The oldest surviving examples of decorative gold artifacts date back about 6,000 years.
It is a legacy that continues today, since investing in precious metals is a key strategy used to safeguard wealth. With ETFs, you buy stocks of the precious metal of your choice. That action is linked to the current value of the gold, platinum or silver in which you invested. Gold adds a special element to a wallet, one that makes it different from all other metals.
However, Cramer warned that this metal should not represent even 20 percent of an investor's portfolio. The dollar has not been able to turn into gold since President Richard Nixon ended that practice in 1971. Before that, people bought gold bars as a way to diversify their investment portfolio and give them protection against inflation. And while both are worthwhile options and there are plenty of reasons to recommend them, you should know all your options before making a commitment. If you want to make a large investment in gold, InstaVault (buy 100, 500, 1000 or more ounces if you want) and large gold or silver bars are the most profitable options with the lowest premium.
Too large an asset allocation (15% or more) dedicated to precious metals could result in the loss of the higher returns offered by other asset classes. We drew the following table to help you better understand the amount of gold you should buy, based on the duration of your investment plan. When consumer and investor confidence declines, I predict that the value of stocks and bonds will be the first to plummet. If you are thinking about buying precious metals for the first time, you may think that you can only invest in silver or gold.
Because of this perception, investors tend to buy gold when they are nervous about the risks of other investments (such as stocks or bonds) or when they forecast high inflation rates. And while precious metals are subject to the same volatility as other investment options, the savvy investor can take advantage of those elastic values to generate profits. Physical gold should offer a new dimension to your wealth portfolio, perhaps initially investing only 5 to 10% of your liquid assets. Another interesting approach to deciding how much gold you should allocate to your investment portfolio is to measure the percentage of global financial assets represented by gold bars.
Along with gold, silver tends to be the precious metal that most comes to mind when we think about investing in precious metals. In times of uncertainty, people turn to gold with the false assumption that it will be a safe investment.
