Storing gold in turbulent times
– A comprehensive guide on how to avoid excessive fees and store gold safely –
Many gold investors spend a lot of money on storage fees, even though they don’t own physical metal, but only have a paper claim to the corresponding monetary value. Others can’t pick up their bullion from the vault where it is stored, as they have purchased the service through an expensive intermediary. And some lose all their money due to fraud or bankruptcy of the bullion dealer. Don’t be one of them. With some research you can significantly reduce your risk and avoid excessive fees.
There are plenty of articles and blogs that provide advice on gold storage. Most are published with the intention of promoting specific products. They are either commissioned by bullion dealers themselves or written with the intention of getting commissions from them. The few that aren’t often lack substance. Our report is different.
We are not part of the sell-side crowd and reject commissions, bonuses, kick-backs, and other forms of payment from service providers. Our fully independent research is exclusively funded by readers and customers of our consulting services. We don’t write to persuade, but to inform. Our objective is to give a comprehensive, unbiased and frank assessment, that will enable you to take your own well-informed decisions.
Our gold storage guide is a living document that is regularly updated. It consists of five blogs, which can be read independently:
- Storage options for long-term gold investors
- Gold ownership carries more risks than you might think
- How to find a good provider of precious metal storage
- The best jurisdictions for gold storage (currently being updated)
- Preferred storage providers (currently being updated)
Global Gold Storage Guide – FAQ
What is your view on gold?
Contrary to many bloggers and writers, who cover bullion storage, we are no gold bugs. We also don’t think that gold is money. Admittedly, it used to be money and is still held by central banks as part of their assets. However, unlike cryptocurrencies, which are increasingly accepted by merchants, you can’t purchase goods and services with gold. This is unlikely to change in the near future, except if there is a complete breakdown of our financial system.
Even though gold does not pay dividends or interests, it has been a good investment for centuries. As central banks continue to intensify their already desperate monetary policies, the value of the yellow metal is bound to soar in the coming years. We also consider gold to be a personal insurance against hyperinflation, bank defaults and the foreseeable collapse of fiat currencies, such as the USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, or CAD.
How does the report help me to save money?
Our information enables you to identify companies with low commissions for the purchase and sale of bullion as well as competitive storage costs. It also helps you to avoid high costs associated with changing providers.
Our first “gold” investments were in gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Realizing the inherent risks of such products, we soon sold our holdings and invested the proceeds in physical metal held with several storage providers. In the following years we did a lot of research on the topic, spoke to many providers and visited several facilities. As a result, we found it necessary to replace expensive storage companies with competitively priced providers.
Transferring bullion from one vault to another is often not possible or too expensive. In this case additional trading activity is required, for which high commissions have to be paid. If you invest USD 1,000 in physical gold, sell it and then invest the proceeds with another gold company, total commissions will be in the USD 70 – 120 range. In case that the price of gold appreciates markedly, commission payments will be even higher.
Our original failure to identify good storage solutions has cost us a lot of money. You can easily avoid this by reading our report and doing your own research before committing to any solution. It requires some of your time, but the ‘return on time invested’ will be huge.
Who benefits most from this guide?
This report is written for ordinary investors with holdings of up to USD 500,000, who plan to hold physical gold for several years or even decades. For institutional investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), who own precious metal worth millions of dollars, there are premium storage solutions available that are not covered in this report, as their minimum investment requirements make them inaccessible to most of us
Is this report useful to short-term gold investors?
For traders, speculators and short-term investors, “paper gold” products such as gold futures, gold derivatives or gold-backed ETFs are a better option than the purchase of physical gold. Such products have very low fees and commissions, are traded on major stock exchanges and can be bought and sold instantaneously. On the downside, such investments don’t represent real gold ownership and have substantial counterparty risk. Hence, we don’t recommend them to long-term investors, especially if they seek insurance against the collapse of our financial system.
Do the key findings also apply to other precious metals?
Most of our findings on gold storage also apply to other precious metals such as silver and platinum
Please contact us at info@livebeyondborders.com if you require additional information or specific advice.
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