Are You Prepared for the New Year?

With a new year just about upon us it’s time for investors to take stock and make sure that they’re prepared for what 2019 brings. 2018 started off with a bang but ended on a sour note for many investors, particularly those who remained heavily invested in equity markets. And as much as many market bulls want to believe that stock markets have bottomed out, the odds are definitely not in their favor.

Hopefully most investors have finished up their year-end tax selling and started thinking about asset allocation and portfolio diversification for 2019. With all the market activity following the same patterns that we last saw in 2007 and 2008, 2019 could be a very bad year for both stock and bond markets. Stock markets will likely drop another several thousand points at best, while rising interest rates and jitters about creditworthiness will cause bond yields to soar and prices to plummet.

While that’s bad news for investors who stick to stocks and bonds, it will likely be great news for gold investors. Even though gold’s performance in 2018 was nearly flat overall, 2019 looks set to be the breakout year we’ve all been hoping for. Gold certainly has done better than stock markets in recent months, rewarding those who have reallocated their investment assets into gold. And every indication is that gold will continue to rise in value through 2019.

It’s not too late to take advantage of the opportunity to buy gold, particularly for those investors who have 401(k) or IRA balances that they’d like to protect. One of the many advantages of a gold IRA, for instance, is that investors can roll over existing tax-protected retirement assets into a gold IRA tax-free. That allows them to take advantage of the protective status offered by gold while still benefiting from the same tax advantages as a traditional IRA. That’s a win-win for investors, just as it was during the last financial crisis when gold investors saw the value of their gold holdings far outstrip the value of their equity investments.

If your investments showed lackluster performance in 2018, don’t start the new year off on the wrong foot by sticking to the same failed investment strategy. Take a look at investing in gold so that your retirement assets remain protected against the likelihood of coming turmoil in markets.