Why you need alternative assets and a Self-Directed IRA

When Clayton Kershaw, the great Dodger pitcher, first came up to the major leagues, he had a solid fastball and an excellent curveball. But he was struggling. His ERA after 10 starts was up at 4.34, and he had a mediocre win-loss record with the Dodgers in the first part of 2009.

“You’re the most predictable pitcher in baseball,” said Dodgers bullpen catcher, Mike Borzello. “You throw a fastball every time in a fastball count. That’s why your pitch counts are so high, why you’re going five innings. You’ve got to come up with something else, a slider or something, and throw it for a strike.’

So Kershaw developed an alternative – a slider – and became one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball.

Many of today’s investors have the same problem the young Clayton Kershaw had: Too limited a repertoire to handle the new environment. The standard mass-market investors’ repertoire is just too limited for this market: When multiples are high, and dividends and interest rates are low, a two-investment repertoire of stocks and bonds isn’t going to go very far. Today’s investors need some alternative asset classes to balance out their stocks and bonds – and Self-Directed IRAs to hold them.

Self-Directed IRA Asset Classes

When the prospect of acceptable returns is scarce in both bonds and equities, most investors need the flexibility of being able to go to a third asset class, or even a fourth. But you don’t have to give up the tax and asset protection benefits of an IRA to do so. Instead, you can open a Self-Directed IRA with American IRA, LLC – and hold all kinds of alternative asset classes, such as:

• Rental properties
• Multi-family housing
• Commercial real estate
• Farms and ranches
• Closely-held C-corporations
• Partnerships
• Limited partnerships
• Oil and gas wells and pipelines
• Mining and timber interests
• Raw land
• Tax liens and certificates
• Private lending
• Hard money lending
• Equipment leasing businesses
• Private debt placements
• Private equity
• Venture capital and startups

The list goes on and on. Every single one of these unconventional asset classes offer periodic opportunities for investors as they fall in and out of favor, and all of them are easy to own within a Self-Directed IRA account with American IRA, LLC.

But don’t expect your banker or Wall Street broker-dealer to tell you about them. Wall Street brokers only get compensated to sell what their parent B/Ds tell them they can sell – or they charge a prohibitively expensive assets under management fee to provide unbiased advice about a full spectrum of investments.

The exact mix of investment asset classes is up to you: When you elect to self-direct your IRA, you aren’t limited to what Wall Street wants you to know about. They will try to sell you stocks, bonds and mutual funds in any environment, no matter how poorly priced they are. Indeed, the worse investment prospects are, the more aggressively they will market them to you.

How To Set Up Your Self-Directed IRA

American IRA, LLC works exclusively with investors who have chosen to self-direct their IRA assets, and declare independence from the Wall Street broker dealers and investment bankers.

Setting up an account is easy, and you can do it from anywhere in the country: Visit us at www.americanira.com, and download our application. From there, we will walk you through how to set up a direct transfer or rollover of existing retirement funds to your Self-Directed IRA account.

Once you have your account funded, just direct us, in writing, what IRA assets you would like us to purchase on your behalf. We’ll handle the transaction and record keeping – all at a fraction of the cost of a typical advisor or wealth manager’s AUM fee in most cases.

Self-Directed IRAs Help You Diversify

Going back to the pitching metaphor: When you’re behind three balls and no strikes on a great fastball hitter, you want to have some other options you can throw for a strike. That’s what it’s like investing when conventional asset prices are high: You are forced to throw to the opponent’s strength.

The Self-Directed IRA lets you diversify your retirement assets. In today’s market, the ability to self-direct may help get you access to that third or fourth asset class you need to get you through a tough investment environment like today’s. You are limited only by your own expertise and investment acumen.

Questions? Call us today at 866-7500-IRA(472). Or feel free to peruse our extensive online informational library.

Either way, we look forward to working with you.