When it comes to investments, the mission is simple, but not easy. Generate returns and control risk.

Your investment capital represents years of hard work, discipline, and delayed gratification. And now it’s time for that nest egg to work just as hard as you have.

The thought of losing the capital you’ve built is daunting. What the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world are doing is a clear and present threat to your hard-earned wealth.

Where can you find protection from the wealth-destroying policies of central banks?

In precious metals.

Gold and silver have proven themselves to be the assets to own during times of economic uncertainty. They provide protection and security against monetary policy bent on destroying the value of our currencies.

As our CEO often says, 

Owning precious metals makes good sense in today’s economic environment. There’s just one drawback. The conventional methods of ownership don’t offer a yield.

Warren Buffett famously dismissed gold in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. He said gold has “…two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative.”

When he wrote that – back in 2011 - he was right. Gold wasn’t procreative. It didn’t multiply while you held it. It couldn’t. But now it can.

In 2016, Monetary Metals unlocked the productivity of gold by funding its first gold fixed-income lease where clients earned interest on gold, paid in gold. We’ve been paying interest on gold and silver deposits ever since.

To do this, we connect with businesses who use gold productively, and we provide them Gold Financing, Simplified™.

What kind of businesses? Jewelers, mints, precious metals dealers, refiners, recyclers, mining companies. Basically any company that has physical gold or silver as inventory or work-in-progress. 

They happily pay a fee - in metal! - to lease the gold & silver inventory required in their business. Our lease financing eliminates their price risk (they don’t have to hedge) and protects their margins.

It’s a win-win-win! For gold investors, for the businesses leasing the gold, and for the economy.

To answer that, we’ll take an in-depth look at seven features of the conventional methods of holding gold. By conventional, we mean:

• ​Vaulted gold & silver
• Bars & coins held at home or in a safe deposit box
• Precious metal ETFs

For an overview of how the conventional methods stack up, we'll start with the chart below. 

The list below links to each of the upcoming chapters. So if you want to jump between sections, feel free. 

Because physical gold outlasts currency. Check out the Bloomberg chart , showing how major currencies have performed relative to gold since 1900. ​

Those are not small declines. Anyone who truly grasps the above chart can see that the dollar is not and should not be the best measure of economic value!

This is why Monetary Metals often says that it’s not gold that goes “up” or “down” against the dollar. Rather, it’s the dollar (and other currencies) that fluctuate against gold. Gold is money, and it, not the dollar, is the measure of value. 

For the investor who doesn’t intend to hold their gold long-term, or who plans to buy and sell frequently, the benefits of true physical ownership may be less important. But for those looking for an optimal long-term store of value, then true physical ownership of precious metals is a priority.

ETFs do not provide physical ownership. Most precious metal ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) are designed to track the dollar price of gold and silver. Arbitrage between the shares of the fund and the metal itself is what enables the fund to track the price of the metal. 

 Alert! With ETFs, you own a claim on the entity that’s holding the metal, not the metal itself. Many funds do not offer redemption in physical metal, and the ones that do have a high cost to redeem. While these vehicles can be a good tool for traders, they do not offer the same protection as owning the metal outright. 

physical reach? Or does it make you nervous to think about having such high-value assets at home?

Here are some points to consider:

Storing your coins & bars at home has a higher level of risk than in a vault. The chances of loss by theft or external damage (fire, flooding etc.) are higher, regardless of whether your metal is hidden, or stored in a safe. Consider a fireproof or waterproof safe as an additional measure of protection when storing at home. And keep careful track of its combination or key.

Insuring your metal at home (via a rider to your homeowner or renter’s policy) is either extremely costly or simply outside the bounds of most insurance providers. This puts many metal investors in a bind. Vault storage can eliminate the risk of loss, and may even help you to sleep better at night. But it isn’t free! We will address the costs of vault storage in the next section.

Consider the physical environment. Your metals should be stored in a cool, dry place. Excessive moisture and heat can cause discoloration and may result in a lower bid if you want to sell them later.

How much gold & silver should you keep at home? Large quantities of metals are heavy, and space limitations, particularly with silver, can restrict your options. Secondly, if at some point you need to exchange your gold or silver back to dollars, you’d be transporting the metal at least part of the way.

Any time you are holding metal that is not insured you’re putting yourself in a position where you could lose 100% of that value if something were to go wrong. Wise investors will look for ways to mitigate and minimize that risk.   

Privacy is crucial. You likely already know the First Rule of Gold Club: Don’t talk about your gold! And when storing at home, this one is a delicate balance. How do you keep your local holdings secret enough to feel safe? But not so secret that your hidden assets could be overlooked by your heirs in the event you’re unexpectedly unavailable.

Avoid the storage issue entirely and choose an ETF? When grappling with these storage considerations, the ETF route can look appealing. But, with ETFs, you don’t actually own any gold. The entity in which you’ve invested owns it. And you might not know the details of their storage capabilities. For this reason, we’ve marked the chart with a question mark. 

Vault Fees

So you’ve decided to go with a proven, guarded, professional depository? Your metals will certainly be safe.

There are two ways metals can be stored at depositories: segregated or unsegregated.

In an segregated account, the actual precious metals that were shipped in are being held in a separate area, similar to a safety deposit box. When withdrawn, the exact same precious metal that was originally deposited will be shipped out of the depository. This is the pricier option.

Unsegregated storage is co-mingled with other metals based on the size, weight and refinery of coins and minted year. Upon withdrawal, the metal will be the identical size, weight, and refinery, or same year coins that will be shipped out. But not necessarily the exact metal you deposited. This is the less expensive option. Depending on the depository – and your account value – expect gold storage fees ranging from .30% to 1.25% of your total asset value. Every year. As long as you store your metals.​

ETF Management Fees – aka “Expense Ratio”

With an ETF, investors lose a percentage of their investment’s value each year via the fund’s expense ratio.

An expense ratio is the recurring annual fee that the fund charges to cover its management expenses, administrative costs, as well as storage fees. The expense ratio is generally a bit higher than typical storage fees.

One of the largest gold ETFs – the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) – for example, has an expense ratio of 0.40%.  This equates to fees of $80 per year on a $20,000 investment. Interestingly, many gold ETFs are experiencing a fee war, resulting in less costly competitors than SPDR.

Such fees may be lower compared to those of a professional depository, such as Brinks. Just remember - with ETFs, you don’t actually own the gold.

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Storage Costs at Home

If you prefer storing your gold & silver at home, you can avoid the annual cost of storage. As we mentioned previously, this is also the riskiest way to hold your metal.

To reduce that risk, you could elect to insure your home-based holdings. This will, of course, come at a price. Check your insurance policy: many carriers only pay up to $250 to replace the cost of coins or bullion.

Unfortunately, the ability to insure precious metals held at home is very limited. Even if you succeed in obtaining some insurance, it merely highlights the reality that there’s simply no way to hold gold conventionally without incurring an annual cost.

Stay Tuned for More Fees

The fees discussed here are different from the buy/sell transaction costs we’ll cover in section six. After that, you’ll be able to answer the important question: What will owning this asset cost me?  

An illiquid market is characterized by few participants and unreliable pricing. Examples of illiquid markets would include real estate, or fine art. A liquid market is characterized by many participants, reliable pricing and order execution. Examples of liquid markets would be US Treasuries, blue chip stocks, and major currency pairs.

Investors sometimes overlook the concept of liquidity as it applies to gold and silver. That can be a costly mistake, so let’s take a look.

What’s the Liquidity of Your Physical Gold & Silver? Depends On Where It Is.

Generally, physical gold and silver bullion is a highly liquid asset. Its value is based on the “spot price” – a universally quoted price reference for the exchange of physical metal.  

However, physical bullion buried in your backyard doesn’t have the same liquidity as physical bullion vaulted in a professional depository. 

Bullion in a Depository – Higher Liquidity 

When bullion is stored in a professional vault depository, there is a known amount, a known quality, and a known location for that metal at any point in time. This allows any bullion dealing desk (many depositories have their own bullion dealing desk) to offer 

much better pricing to buy that metal than if​ it were at an unknown location (your backyard), of an unknown quality (they’ve never seen it) and to be delivered at an unknown time (how long will it take to get to where they need it to be?). A bullion trader could provide you a reliable quote over the phone or via email. The transaction could be executed quickly because the metal is already there. All of this gives you greater liquidity for your physical bullion.

Bullion at Home – Lower Liquidity

Going the home storage route decreases the liquidity of your asset.

Whether we’re talking bars or coins, if you’re storing at home and wanting to sell, you must deal with transport. Which leads to security issues: do I transport it myself or hire out? This either slows down the process, or increases your risk. Sometimes it does both.   

In addition, you must find a trusted dealer who wants to purchase your metal, at a price you like. If you decide to go local, the hunt for a reputable dealer can slow the process further. And local dealers may have capacity limitations (meaning they will only be able to buy so much) that larger bullion desks won’t. But to get it to a larger bullion desk, you’ll likely have to arrange transport as mentioned above.  

ETFs: Highly Liquid

Large gold and silver ETFs are highly liquid. They have a narrow bid - ask spread. They can easily and quickly be bought and sold, in large volumes, during normal trading sessions at a reliable bid or ask price. You could transact in ETFs daily, and even several times during the day, with minimal loss of value. 

The first concern is transparency. Counterparty risk can look different depending on the type of transaction and the number of parties involved. Sometimes the risk is clearly disclosed and well known. Other times, it’s not. When the counterparty risk is unclear – or is not properly disclosed – it becomes difficult to properly evaluate the investment.

The second concern is the number of counterparties. There can be multiple counterparties involved in one transaction (e.g buying a share of a company on a stock exchange), each with a different risk. If one counterparty fails to meet its obligations, it could trigger a failure in the other parties’ ability to fulfill its obligations. You can see why being aware of counterparty risk is so important.

Generally, the counterparty risk on physical metals is extremely low. 

​Gold & silver are physical commodities. They cannot go bankrupt or broke, nor default on promises or obligations.

This is absolutely true for any metal you hold at home. For metal that’s stored in a vault, the vault represents a counterparty to your asset and therefore introduces some risk. However, this risk is very low.

Precious metals depositories receive client metal into a storage account in bailment or as bailment. Bailment is a legal term and one that every precious metal investor should know, especially if they’re storing metal in a vault.

Storing metal as bailment means that the metals still belong to you – it’s your personal property. You are not extending credit to the vault or to anyone else. This means that the storage provider is restricted to only doing those things spelled out in the agreement, namely safely and securely storing your metal for a fee. 

If the vault were to go bankrupt, your metal would have to be returned to you since it would not be available to creditors. While many vaults are called “depositories” and may receive metal as a “deposit” into a storage account, they are really receiving metal as bailment. As we’ve spelled out, this kind of metal deposit, is 

very, very different than when you deposit dollars in your bank. Here’s an excerpt from one of our storage providers that spells out this important distinction:

For these reasons, our chart shows a green checkmark for both vaulted gold and silver and storing at home.

So…now let’s talk ETFs. This one is quite a ride.

ETFs Backed by Gold & Silver

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: with gold or silver-backed ETFs, you don’t own any precious metal. You own shares in a fund. There are many different types of precious metals funds with many different objectives. For the purpose of this guide we will divide them into two categories.

Physical ETFs. These are ETFs that actually trade and hold physical vaulted metal. Examples would include GLD, PHYS, CEF, OUNZ and GTU. While the structure, fees and mechanics may vary across each of these, what they share in common is that that they offer investors exposure to the price of metals by vaulting metal and issuing shares of the fund against that metal. Arbitrage between the price of the shares and the price of the metal is what keeps the price of the shares tracking the price of the metal.

Synthetic ETFs. Unlike physical ETFs, synthetic ETFs may not hold any metal but may engage in financial products or instruments such as options or futures which are linked to physical metal in order to provide a focused return matrix or behavior. Many synthetic ETFs will use leverage to enhance those returns.

Read the Prospectus

The common denominator with any ETF is the heavy reliance upon counterparties. Even in the physical ETF category, there are multiple counterparties involved.

To demonstrate, here’s the first page of the prospectus for GLD, the most popular and most owned precious metals ETF. Let's look at the opening paragraph.

Excluding the marketing agent of the trust, we already have three counterparties. But that’s not all. How would you go about buying these shares if you wanted to? Would you call up BNY Asset Servicing and place an order? Of course not! So how would you do it? 

So we’ve just identified two more counterparties – NYSE (the New York Stock Exchange) is one, and the Authorized Participants are another. Who are the authorized participants?  You have to hunt further through the prospectus to figure that out. 

During which we discover this info:

So that’s what defines an Authorized Participant, but who are they in this fund? Later on they provide a list of TEN authorized participants: 

In addition to the list above, ETFs also rely on the Depository Trust Company (DTC) which is the entity in charge of record keeping and ownership for who owns what within the fund, and how they own it.

A casual walk through the prospectus of GLD or other ETFs will alert you to the kinds and amount of counterparty risk you might be exposing yourself to. These companies are required to provide an up-to-date prospectus, which is free and easily accessible to the public. The problem is, many investors don’t take the time to read through it.

Ultimately, ETFs are someone else’s liability

Gold and silver-backed ETFs are not simply physical metal. They are financial instruments that rely on contractual promises between multiple counterparties that can be broken, exposing all parties to risk.

If you find ETFs appealing in some way, it pays to perform proper due diligence. Evaluate the specific fund, their counterparties, and their operation. Make sure you’re comfortable with the level of risk before investing your hard-earned dollars.  

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However, there are also plenty of brokerages which don’t charge any commissions for placing trades. Just keep in mind that this foregone revenue is likely coming back to them but in a different place like wider bid ask spreads.

Generally, the transaction costs of ETFs are less than those of physical metals. Especially if you hold your shares long-term, instead of actively trading.

Transaction Costs in True Physical Ownership

First up: be sure you understand the terms “spot price” and “premium.” These terms are important, and they affect your vaulted metal, or any gold & silver you hold at home.

Spot price is the current price per ounce exchanged on global commodity markets. You can check this price daily, from various sources online.

The premium is an additional price charged over the spot price and is based on the 

specific bullion product. Premium can be a bit subjective, and its calculation depends on six factors:

• The current market supply and demand
• The volume you’re buying or selling
• The seller’s objectives (when you are buying)
• The buyer’s objectives (when you are selling)
• Economic conditions - locally, nationally & globally
• The type of products involved (e.g., a 1oz coin would have a large premium, while a 100oz bar would have a smaller premium​) 

Supply & Demand: That Delicate Balance

We won’t go too deep here, but understanding the basics is a must. The total amount of supply & demand of bullion is the major influence of its premium price.

Bullion dealers must balance their product inventory and profitability. If they have too much inventory, their operating costs are high. If they have too little inventory, they can’t satisfy their buyers. So they adjust their premium accordingly, and pass that on to you.

Keep in mind that manufacturing capacity for small bars and especially coins is finite. If demand temporarily surges above capacity, then supply cannot increase to match it. Manufacturers want to invest in equipment to meet average demand, and are reluctant to spend money to buy new equipment for demand that is likely temporary.

Local Dealers vs Bullion Trading Desks

 If your metal is stored at home, and you must sell, you’ll likely use a local dealer for the transaction. Considering the factors mentioned above – specifically the type & volume of what you’re selling – the chances of getting your ideal price from that shop on the corner is low. Which makes your transaction costs potentially high, in relation to the same transaction, if it were at a depository.

Additionally, if you hold metal at home, dealers may require an assay before accepting it. An assay is an analysis that measures and tests the composition of precious metals. It’s a way to verify that coins or bars meet proper purity standards and content. Performing an assay can take a week or two, and the cost is borne by the owner of the metal.

Did Someone Say Shortage?

If you don’t pay attention – daily – the precious metals markets can seem a bit opaque. Some folks feel that they’re purposefully opaque.

Bottom line, from outside the industry, potential shortages aren’t obvious. You often won’t know there’s a pending shortage...until there’s a shortage.

For example…one day you wake up, and there’s no toilet paper. Anywhere. Sure, you heard a few people mention the possibility, but you weren’t tracking the now-obvious escalation in toilet paper sales leading up to the shortage.

There were several logical reasons to explain why a toilet paper shortage shouldn’t occur. And yet it happened.

The Current Reality

Just prior to this publication (July 2020), the precious metals market experienced an overwhelming retail demand. That demand created a shortage in product and drove up premiums. Alerts about this appeared on the websites of several precious metal retailers.

 What caused this increase in demand?

 It’s hard to point to the specific cause. First, we’re dealing with a massive amount of stimulus recently undertaken by the US Congress, the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Additionally, there’s economic uncertainty in the United States and abroad due to the Coronavirus. And lastly, media outlets, financial advisors & retailers are all praising the safe haven of precious metals.

Regardless of the cause, here’s the effect: purchasing from a dealer in such an environment will result in higher premiums. You may save on storage by keeping it at home, but you will pay more if you purchase metal locally. 

If your sole focus is to reduce up-front costs, you may prefer to purchase metal through an ETF.  Investors who want to buy immediately – but don’t want to pay ​high premiums – can buy-in at their preferred price, and hold their metal until premiums come down. They could then exit the ETF and purchase physical product at a lower initial cost.

In such an environment, many experts are predicting a rise in gold and silver prices. Our stance in that arena is neutral: it may or may not occur. Monetary Metals does not speculate on price. Our focus is to generate a yield for our investors. But more on that, later.

Transaction Costs + Fees = What Your Assets Cost You

Calculating your total cost when buying precious metals shouldn't be difficult. But sometimes it can feel that way. 

Even if  you have all the numbers up front, many bullion dealers will attempt to blur the real costs by using different terms or charging high shipping and insurance fees. If you can’t get a clear sense of the costs involved, that’s a good sign that you need to move on to a different provider.

To calculate your total cost, follow this formula:

If you’re vaulting metal, you would add in “yearly storage fees” to the above and that would give you your transaction cost plus your annual cost of ownership.

For ETFs it’s a bit simpler. There’s the price per share plus any broker commissions. Just make sure you take any annual expense ratios or management fees into account as well since those costs will come out of your investment.

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing the first six features of conventional gold & silver investments. Now let’s move on to our favorite of the seven. 

And the same goes for ETFs – which aren’t even physical metal. The number of shares you own will stay static.

Sure, in all of these conventional options, the price of gold and silver in dollars may go up. But your ounces? They don’t grow. And when there are fees involved, your ounces are reduced.

But with our Gold Fixed Income solution, your gold and silver ounces don’t stay the same. They grow!

Let’s take a closer look.

Our Gold Fixed Income leases connect investors with the gold-producing businesses we mentioned earlier: mints, precious metals dealers, refiners, jewelers, and mining companies.

They happily pay a fee - in metal! - to lease your gold & silver, using it as inventory or work-in-progress.   

This unique financing solution eliminates their exposure to the volatility of the metals prices, which lowers their financing costs. It often enables them to extract working capital back out of their inventory so they can build out their business further.

Meanwhile, you receive a steady interest income on your gold – paid in gold – without spending down any of your gold capital.

It’s a win-win! For our gold investors, and for the businesses leasing the gold.

But Is It a Win for You?

Now that we’ve covered all seven features of gold investments, let’s review our chart. You’ll notice that this version includes a fourth row showing how Monetary Metals stacks up against the other options. 

Next up: a quick run through each feature relative to  Monetary Metals’ Fixed Income offering.

TRUE PHYSICAL OWNERSHIP

Remember the benefits discussed earlier regarding physical ownership?

History has proven that physical gold & silver offer long-term store of value, and have outlasted all paper currencies.  

With our Gold Fixed Income program, you own physical metal.

You can fund an account using the physical gold and silver bullion you already own. Or we can facilitate your purchase of physical gold or silver.  

Again, the metal is physical, and title to it is retained by you throughout the life of your account. For all ounces you hold on account, there are physical ounces of gold and silver held securely at all times.

STORED SECURELY

Our clients’ metal is stored in high security, fully insured, professional depositories throughout the US and across the globe. It is 100% insured.

ZERO STORAGE & INSURANCE COSTS

In addition to the interest paid on your Gold Fixed Income account,​​ we also cover your storage costs.

That’s right….no vault fees!

Which means you get the benefits of professional, secure storage, but your ounces will not be depleted over time.

HIGH LIQUIDITY

Earlier, we explained that bullion is a highly liquid asset. And the liquidity of your physical bullion is at its highest when stored in the vault of a professional depository. Check and check.

We leverage our network of liquidity providers and dealing desks to make sure our clients get the best price and execution for all buy and sell orders.  

TRANSPARENT COUNTERPARTY RISK

You’ll recall, the counterparty risk on physical metals is extremely low. Gold & silver cannot go bankrupt. Bullion will never default on promises.

In our Fixed Income program we provide a yield on gold, paid in gold®. We’re able to do so because there is a counterparty involved. But just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s no such thing as a risk-free return. If you’re earning a return on something, it means you're taking on some risk.

In our view, there’s nothing wrong with risk per se. As long as it is controlled, is transparently disclosed, and investors are compensated. Let’s dig into those items a bit more.

1. Control and Risk Mitigation

First, Monetary Metals performs thorough due diligence on all potential fixed income opportunities before presenting them in our Gold Yield Marketplace.

In that vetting process, we seek to identify risks in these areas: 

• Process - how is the gold used?
• Flows - where does the gold move?
• Controls - who can move the gold, how is the metal protected?
• Monitoring - how much visibility do we have to where the gold is at each stage?
• Mitigation: physical security, accounting & reporting systems, insurance, etc.

In this process, our focus is qualitative, not quantitative. We’re seeking to identify what could go wrong at each point. From there we work backwards to explore and implement ways to mitigate risk and prevent issues. It is not Monetary Metals’ approach to say “Company A is less risky than Company B.” Rather, our goal is to identify and mitigate risk and provide clear and transparent disclosure. This enables and equips our investors to confidently decide for themselves on each individual lease opportunity.  

2. Transparency and Disclosure

Once we complete our due diligence, and we’re ready to present the opportunity to our investors, we send them a summary of our findings. These presentations answer the “what, why, when, where and how” their gold or silver will be used.

​The summary also contains a disclosures of the risks we found and how we will mitigate them. Clients review the opportunity and evaluate the risk on each opportunity according to their own criteria. The summary is sent in advance of funding, with plenty of time to become familiar with the deal and ask questions before deciding to participate.​

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3. Compensation

The yield we pay varies by each lease opportunity, and is decided within our Gold Yield Marketplace auction process. Currently, our investors earn between 2% and 4.5% on their gold & silver.

Lastly, no one is under any obligation to participate if they don’t want to. If investors don’t like the rate, they can take a pass and wait for an opportunity that better suits their risk and return requirements. 

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LOW TRANSACTION COSTS

When Monetary Metals assists with your gold & silver purchase, you’ll see very competitive transaction costs. Why? We leverage our network of providers to get you the best pricing and order execution.  

EARNS INTEREST & COMPOUNDS OVER TIME

Of course earning interest and eliminating vault fees sound great. And compounding interest? Even better.

But to fully understand the potential growth facing you – in ounces of gold and silver – let’s put some actual numbers to it. 

​You’ll notice the graph below is all about the ounces. It illustrates five scenarios.

Scenario 1: Purchased from a bullion desk & stored in a vault 

Take a look at the blue line.

With storage fees of 0.50%, your account is depleted by half an ounce the first year. Leaving you with 99.5 ounces.

After ten years of erosion due to storage fees, you’re down to just over 95 ounces. At current gold prices, that’s nearly $8,700 lost. Or as our CEO Keith Weiner would say, 5 ounces of money​.

Scenario 2: Purchase of shares in the GLD ETF

Here we see that the red line shows an initial growth in value, then an overall decline. With a near breakeven point in the middle.

The early growth occurred since funds trade at a premium (or a discount) relative to their net asset value, and 2010-12 was the height of a bull market for gold. So, GLD was trading at a premium. The account value was up.

But when the dollar price of gold began descending in 2013, GLD traded at a discount to its net asset value. Naturally, the account value followed that decline.  Additionally, the fund’s ongoing expense ratio ate into the account, decreasing its value even further.  

From 2010-2020, GLD and vaulted gold decline similarly. 100oz worth of GLD becomes the dollar equivalent of 97oz after 10 years.

Scenario 3: Purchased from a retail dealer & stored at home 

See that dotted line? It shows the big hit you take up front.

Because of the high transaction costs of retail coins, e.g. 1oz American eagles, you start off with fewer ounces for the same dollars. And while your ounces don’t suffer additional erosion from recurring fees over time, there’s no opportunity for your ounces to grow.

Scenarios 4 & 5: Monetary Metals

What if – instead of losing ounces to storage fees – you could upgrade your gold and silver holdings to earn a yield, without losing any of the other benefits we’ve already discussed?

You can!

Compounding Interest? Yes, Please!

We mentioned earlier that our investors are earning between 2% and 4.5% annual on their metals.

The power of compound interest is a function of the interest rate and the frequency of compounding. In the above chart we show what 3.0% (the yellow line) and 4.5% (the green line) can do to your total holdings when compounded at an annual rate over ten years.

You can see that at 3% per year, with zero vault fees, your gold would grow to over 134 ounces. At 4.5% annual, you earn an additional 55 oz.

The picture is pretty clear when it comes to ounces, but what does it look like in dollars?

And again in year seven! Conventional methods of owning gold would be flat or at breakeven. But with Monetary Metals? Your ounces are continuing to ​grow. Which means the fluctuations in the dollar price of gold mean less and less to you. This is what it looks like when your money is actually working for you.

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You can see that same effect in 2019, with the gold price at nearly the same place it began, almost 10 years later! At that same point, a Monetary Metals investor would be sitting on 50-70% dollar gains.

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At the end of the 10 years, Monetary Metals leaves the competition in the dust, outperforming the alternatives by 38% (at our average 3% return level)! And up to as much as 60%, via our highest rate leases!

These charts tell the story over the last ten years of data, but due to the power of compounding interest, the longer the time period, the more your capital works for you. The next ten years could look even better.

Hypothetical scenarios are useful, but it’s even more fun to look at an actual Monetary Metals Account Statement.

This client joined Monetary Metals in Nov 2017. From then, through May 2020, she participated in 7 leases, earning an additional 6oz of gold and 35 oz of silver. In just two-and-a-half years!

 Not all of our clients own multiple metals, nor in this volume. (Our minimum deposit for gold is 10 oz; silver is 1000 oz). But they all benefit from the power of compound interest at work. You can, too.

Join us today and start growing your gold!