“Gold bug.” It might sound like something you’d find in the lawn, but you’re more likely to find one on a cable business channel. What is it, exactly? The better question might be: who are they? They’re investors who believe that gold is one of the safest and wisest investments out there. They believe in the long-term value of gold, believe that gold is a hedge against inflation, and are anxious to take their money out of the dollar and put it in gold. Subsequently, many of these independent-thinking types turn to Self-Directed IRAs to give themselves the protection of a retirement account and the security of gold and silver investments.

What it Means to be a “Gold Bug” in the World of Self-Directed IRAs

First, let’s define your investment profile. The kind of investments many people turn to will vary depending on where their priorities lie. If you think you might be a gold bug, try answering a few of the following questions:

• …do you believe that it’s important for a retirement portfolio to hedge against inflation and a potential decline in the value of the dollar?
• …do you believe that gold and silver are likely to retain and enhance in value over time?
• …are you wary of the stock market and want to make sure that you at least have some sort of hedge in other types of investment assets?
• …are you interested in a more “unconventional” style of investing—one that doesn’t necessarily throw the rulebook away, but goes a little bit off the beaten path to find one that more suits your way of thinking?

As you might have guessed, if you answered “yes” for a majority of those questions, you might just be a gold bug. Now the question remains: what are you going to do about it?

Investing in Gold with Self-Directed IRAs

The beauty of the self-directed retirement account is that it gives you plenty of opportunities to take your financial destiny into your own hands. The IRS actually allows for all sorts of investment types via the retirement account, which means that you can have the security of knowing that your investments are protected in one of these accounts…even if you’re not strictly investing in bonds and mutual funds.

Many people turn to gold because they believe that gold will tend to retain its value over the long-term. Although the long-term returns on goal aren’t traditionally high, there have been many periods in which gold has seen rapid growth. It’s traditionally seen as a “hedge” against inflation as well as an alternative to investing in stocks and bonds.

Investing in gold is simple if you want to work through a Self-Directed IRA. It simply means establishing the right kind of IRA for yourself and taking control of it; you can review the different ways of establishing a Self-Directed IRA by continuing to read about them here at AmericanIRA.com.

Is Gold Investing For You?

We’re not telling you that you have to change to a retirement portfolio of 100% gold. Even “gold bugs” don’t often do that. What you do want to consider is having a substantial amount of precious metals—even if it’s not a substantial percentage of your overall portfolio.

If you’re interested in learning more about gold investing in Self-Directed IRAs, check out our precious metals section or call us at 1-866-7500-IRA(472) to learn more about how all of this works. It will help you acquaint yourself with retirement accounts, the Self-Directed IRA, and, yes, gold.