With financial markets becoming increasingly volatile (the Shanghai Composite's loss of over $2 trillion in the past month, for example), along with growing global economic instability and currency risks (Greece contagion, anyone?), we think it time to reiterate more loudly our core belief that everyone should own some precious metals.
As detailed out in our report The Screaming Fundamentals For Owning Gold & Silver, the primary reasons are:
- To protect purchasing power against monetary recklessness (e.g. central bank money printing)
- As insulation against fiscal foolishness (e.g., chronic deficit spending by governments)
- As insurance against the possibility of a major calamity in the banking/financial system
- For the embedded 'option value' that will pay out handsomely if gold is re-monetized
And while there are many ways to purchase precious metals, we continue to be impressed by the full-service set of solutions offered by the Hard Assets Alliance. Peak Prosperity joined the HAA as a founding member back in 2012, and since then, we've appreciated how well they've executed on their mission and continued to launch features targeted at what their customers value most.
In this week's podcast, Chris sits down with Olivier Garrett, the CEO of the Hard Assets Alliance to discuss the current state of the precious metals market, why the reasons for owning bullion make more sense than ever today, and what the HAA, specifically, is doing to make it as affordable, easy and secure as possible for people everywhere to own gold and silver.
The podcast gets into much more detail, but the main advantages of the Hard Assets Alliance is that it makes the same advantages enjoyed by institutions available to the retail bullion investor:
- Excellent pricing – For every order, a least four suppliers provide a bid to meet it. The platform compares them and offers you the best one.
- Quality of product – The HAA only offers sovereign coins and standard bullion bars, which hold their value more consistently than any other forms. No numismatics or rare coins. You can buy gold, silver, platinum, or palladium through the HAA.
- Delivery options – Take physical delivery immediately of your purchased bullion, or opt to have the HAA store it for you safely at low cost.
- Allocated storage – All bullion (bars or coins) that you purchase and store through the HAA is held in your name at the vault location of your choosing. If you purchase bars, the serial numbers are provided to you. Bullion stored by the HAA is never pooled, margined, or otherwise leveraged.
- Storage options – You can choose to have your bullion stored in vaults in the US (New York and Salt Lake City), the UK, Switzerland, Australia and/or Singapore. (Metals available at any location are subject to availability)
- Storage security – HAA bullion is stored in the same secure vaults as for the major global investment banks and governments that use the SmartMoney platform. These vaults have around-the-clock armed physical security, state-of-the-art electronic protection, and insurance for the full value of your deposit. Their precious metal holdings are audited every day and an audit report containing bar lists is sent to the Hard Assets Alliance daily. In addition, an internationally recognized Big Four auditing firm audits all of the precious metal holdings on a quarterly basis. Precious-metal bar holdings are confirmed with Hard Assets Alliance and reported on the Hard Assets Alliance website.
- Low storage fees – Between 0.5%-0.8% per year for gold and silver
- At-will delivery – Any bullion you store with the HAA will be shipped to you, fully-insured, within 48 hours of your request.
- Easy, anytime, instant transactions – Once your HAA account is funded, the online system lets you buy and sell bullion and/or request delivery with just a few mouse clicks. You can perform any of these transactions 24/7.
- Reliability – Since the SmartMoney platform must meet the service requirements of the world's largest investment banks, you can have confidence that if worldwide bullion inventories become tight, the HAA will have the highest reliability that it can fulfill your order when you need to transact.
- World-class support – In addition to the online system, live support via phone, email, and chat is available to help you 12 hours a day, 5 days a week.
- IRS reporting – HAA accounts are considered US accounts, even if your bullion is stored in a vault overseas. Therefore you are not required to file IRS foreign-held asset reporting forms such as TD F 90-22.1.
Those interested in learning more about the Hard Assets Alliance and its solutions should click here.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Olivier Garrett of the Hard Asset Alliance (41m:44s)
by ces