We’re living in a time when the U.S. dollar is under pressure to support a struggling global economy.
So, investors are joining central banks and turning to precious metals to hedge up their portfolios.
Gold and silver are solid forms of liquid reserves. As the COVID-19 health crisis evolves into an economic pandemic … real estate investors should consider these malleable assets.
Our good friend Dana Samuelson is here to talk about precious metals and investors like YOU.
In this episode of The Real Estate Guys™ show, hear from:
- Your shiny gold host, Robert Helms
- His tarnished co-host, Russell Gray
- Precious metals expert, Dana Samuelson
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Hedging strategies for your portfolio
Today we’re talking about the safety and hedging strategies real estate investors can employ with precious metals.
Real estate investors tend to look at life … and investing … transactionally. But traditional investing is really about building a portfolio.
A portfolio consists of different components. When you apply portfolio theory to your real estate investing, you can use some of the same financial strategies that paper asset investors enjoy using the real assets you prefer.
What are real assets? Real assets are things that are physical and tangible. They don’t really rely upon a counterparty risk.
Building a portfolio of diverse real assets is important … and today we’re talking about a component that can be an important part of your portfolio mix.
There’s the possibility that because of this economic shutdown, the Federal Reserve is going to print so many dollars that it will begin to damage currency. How do you hedge against that?
One way is to invest in assets that don’t have counterparty risk … like precious metals.
Dollars haven’t existed forever … but gold and silver have.
Why gold and silver?
Our guest today knows a lot about these precious metals … Dana Samuelson. Dana is one of the best resources out there on gold and silver investing.
“Gold and silver are malleable, so they have been used as money and currency since ancient times,” Dana says.
Unlike paper money, gold doesn’t really change its value. It is the same today as it was a hundred years ago in terms of purchasing power … in fact, it has actually gained value against printed currencies over the hundred years.
Gold is up over $300 an ounce in the last 12 months relative to the dollar.
One thing investors do need to understand is that when you buy an ounce of gold, it doesn’t have an ROI. It doesn’t earn interest.
What it does is preserve its value at whatever time, place, and currency you want to compare it to going forward.
So, we don’t all think of gold and silver as investments as much as we do a hedge against inflation and a way to keep money safe.
Gold and silver have always been fantastic as far as preserving purchasing power, and there are multiple ways to invest in metals.
Ways to invest in precious metals
You can of course buy precious metals outright by the ounce. But you can also invest in funds. You can invest in ETFs. You can even invest in mining companies.
But, many of the alternatives to buying gold and silver outright do come with some counterparty risk. That’s why buying metals outright is so popular.
When people think of gold bullion, they think of gold bars. These bars are minted privately. Most major mints have since replaced bars with round bullion pieces in the United States.
The U.S. mint has been making one-ounce gold and silver Eagles since 1986. Other countries … like Canada, South Africa, China, Australia, and Austria … also make round coins as alternatives to bars.
Up until 1933, people had a choice on the street between a $20 gold coin or a $20 paper bill.
That means that there are a lot of older, classic coins that survive today and are many times scarcer than modern bullion pieces. These coins have collector value that is above and beyond their intrinsic metal value.
Just like in real estate, there are typically additional fees when you buy or sell coins, but those are fairly nominal.
In the past few months, Dana has seen a strong demand for the physical product of gold and silver coins.
Getting into the game
What advice does Dana have for new investors to the precious metals game?
“I would try and determine what your overall strategy is and how much you really want to put into this market over, say, the next six months,” Dana says. “I would definitely get started sooner rather than later.”
Dana recommends cost averaging your purchases over the next two to four months since precious metals tend to sell off with stocks as people rush to liquidity.
Cost averaging is a great way to get in and keep your prices low.
You can also look at the gold to silver ratio to see how many parts of silver it takes to equal one part of gold. Simply divide the gold price by the silver price.
Historically that ratio has been anywhere from 20:1 to 40:1. In the past several weeks, that ratio has moved all the way up to as high as 125:1 … which means silver is dirt cheap.
One reason silver is lagging behind gold is that gold represents true portable wealth. “You can carry $150K to $200K worth of gold in your hands. It’s about the size of a paperback novel,” Dana says.
Silver, Dana says, is more spending money to use on the street if there is a problem with currency.
“I would advise listeners to think about allocating 40% of their funds to gold and maybe 60% to silver right now,” Dana says.
For more about investing in precious metals … listen to the full episode!
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