Setting up a precious metal traditional IRA or Roth IRA is a great way to diversify your retirement savings and protect your portfolio from economic uncertainty. Edward Jones is a firm that offers aspiring investors a broad range of investment products to help grow their wealth.
In this Edward Jones review, we will learn more about the investment firm, the products it offers, and whether or not it can help set up a gold IRA.
Keep reading until the end, as we will go over Edward Jones IRA fees and whether you should invest your hard-earned money into one of its products. Let’s get started!
Before you read this review:
It’s no doubt there are turbulent market conditions on the horizon. I’ve always done my best to help guide investors on what I’ve learned over the last 15 years of covering the retirement investing.
I know it’s not easy to find a place to park money ahead of this daunting recession, and for this reason I’ve documented my life’s research in hopes of helping people find a company that they can trust.
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About Edward Jones
Established in 1922, Edward D. Jones & Co. started as an investment company with a small office consisting of a desk, three chairs, and a hat rack. The core fundamentals behind the business were to treat its employees with respect and offer clients quality investments according to their financial situation.
By 1980, Ted Jones, the son of the founder of Edward Jones, had expanded operations by opening 300 branches across many different towns and rural villages. When John Bachmann became the next managing partner, he decided to expand the company’s office network by targeting metropolitan areas.
Bachmann’s strategy paid off, as Edward Jones tripled in size in just five years. By 1990, the business had opened its doors in Canada, and in 2008, the company had over 10,000 offices.
With more than $1.6 trillion in assets under management, this financial services firm is on a mission to help its client achieve their financial goals.
Currently, Edward Jones employs more than 50,000 employees (over 19,000 financial advisors) across 15,000 locations. It provides financial and investment services to over 7 million clients.
Besides helping investors grow their wealth, Edward Jones is on a mission to help poor communities around the world by participating in different philanthropic activities.
What Are the Products Offered at Edward Jones?
There are many different investment products offered at Edward Jones, some of which include the following:
Stocks, Bonds, and Mutual Funds
Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are examples of traditional financial assets that you can invest in to grow your wealth.
The team at Edward Jones can guide you on the different products available under this category and their rates to help you make an informed decision.
Exchange-traded Funds
Besides stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, Edward Jones also offers exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are a basket of securities that tracks an underlying index.
ETFs are a great way to invest your money, as they offer the flexibility of stocks and the portfolio diversification power of mutual funds.
Unit Investment Trusts
Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) are similar to mutual funds, in which investors buy a fixed portfolio of securities.
At Edward Jones, you can purchase UITs and enjoy various benefits, including access to a diversified portfolio of securities, greater transparency into investors’ holdings, and low minimum investment requirements.
Traditional IRA and Roth IRA
An individual retirement account is a fantastic way for investors to grow their retirement savings. Whether it is a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA, Edward Jones allows you to invest your money into these types of accounts, and the financial advisor can guide you on how you can set one up.
Investors can set up traditional IRAs by contributing pre-tax dollars up to the IRA contribution limits. However, upon withdrawal after the age of 59½, they must pay taxes on the income.
On the other hand, a Roth IRA allows investors to make after-tax contributions up to the IRA contribution limits, which means that the money grows tax-free. The account holders can withdraw after the age of 59½ without incurring any taxes or penalties.
Sometimes, Roth IRAs are a better option than traditional IRAs, as you’ll be paying taxes at a lower rate and withdrawing funds tax-free when you’re in a higher tax bracket.
However, it’s essential to talk to a knowledgeable investment advisor and discuss your financial goals to help determine a product that’s right for you.
Besides the investment products mentioned above, there are many other financial assets you can invest in, including the following:
Guided solutions fund account
Brokerage accounts
529 plans
Guided solutions flex account
Edward Jones Charitable Gift Fund
If you’re looking to achieve your charitable giving goals, Edward Jones can help you with that through the Charitable Gift Fund. It’s a fantastic way to support the causes you care about while receiving tax deductions for your contributions.
Can You Set up an Edward Jones Gold IRA?
Edward Jones is an investment firm and not a precious metals dealer, which is why you won’t find anything about self-directed gold IRAs.
However, it offers a way for aspiring investors to invest in gold mining companies or gold-related exchange-traded funds.
Paper Gold
At Edward Jones, you can invest in paper gold, which is a paper-based representation of the different precious metals.
When investing your retirement savings into these types of investments, you’re not getting physical gold or silver but shares of the precious metals that are stored in secured vaults.
Precious Metals Mutual Fund
If you’re looking for all of the advantages of a mutual fund, you can put your money in the precious metals mutual funds offered by Edward Jones. It is a pool of funds that the broker invests in different forms of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.
What’s great about the precious metals mutual funds is that you get to invest your retirement savings into different assets, which are typically managed by an experienced broker.
Which Companies Offer the Best Gold IRAs?
Since Edward Jones does not offer precious metals IRA, you may want to look elsewhere. There are many coin and precious metal dealers to consider.
If you’re looking to purchase IRS-eligible gold coins (such as American Gold Eagle, Maple Leaf, and many more), gold bullion, and other precious metals or want to set up an IRA, the following are some of the most reputable dealers in the United States:
Goldco
Augusta Precious Metals
American Hartford Gold
Noble Gold
Advantage Gold
Patriot Gold Group
Whether you want to set up a precious metals traditional IRA or Roth IRA, you must discuss your investment goals with an experienced investment advisor. They can guide you by assessing your risk profile and learning more about your financial situation.
Benefits of Investing in Precious Metals
There are lots of benefits of investing in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium or setting up a precious metals IRA, some of which include the following:
Avail Tax Benefits
Whether you set up a precious metal traditional IRA or a Roth IRA, you can enjoy the tax benefits that come with these types of retirement accounts.
Hedge Against Inflation
When a country experiences inflation, it brings down the value of the country’s currency, which can have an adverse impact on one’s retirement savings.
By investing in precious metals, investors can hedge their portfolios against rising prices and a dwindling fiat currency.
Safe Haven Assets
Economic uncertainty can cause fear among investors, causing them to move away from traditional financial assets and invest their savings into precious metals. This is because gold, silver, platinum, and palladium are safe-haven assets, as they remain unaffected by poor market performance.
Stable Retirement Savings Portfolio
If you like to invest in high-risk investments to enjoy higher rewards, you must diversify your portfolio enough to ensure stability when one or more of the assets start to perform poorly.
Investing in precious metals is a great way to spread your risk from risky investments, as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium do not fluctuate much, and their value is not correlated with traditional financial assets.
Edward Jones IRA Fees and Pricing of Other Investment Products
Edward Jones is more expensive than self-directed online stock brokers, as it is a full-service broker. There are several types of fees that you need to be aware of, including the following:
Management fees: Depending on the type of account you open, you may have to pay a management fee, which could be a percentage of the value of your account. It starts at 1.35% for an investment of $250,000 and reduces to 0.5% for $10 million in assets. This is a tiered fee system, meaning that the company will charge 1.35% for the first $250,000 and so on.
Portfolio strategy fee: Edward Jones also charges a portfolio strategy fee for all broker-provided advisory solutions. This is another tiered fee that higher-value investors have to pay.
Trade commissions: Depending on the type of account you open at Edward Jones, you may have to pay trade commissions on the assets you buy or sell.
You’ll definitely get a headache trying to wrap your head around the different types of fees Edward Jones charges.
Although the investment firm claims that the investors can enjoy long-term ROIs, paying $3,375 per year of your hard-earned money on a $250,000 portfolio seems a bit ridiculous.
Who Should Use Edward Jones?
Edward Jones offers investment products to high net-worth investors. If you’ve got the cash and want to invest in different financial assets, you can cover the management fees and receive personalized investment advice.
Those who do not require financial advice or hand-holding when making investments can save a lot of money by choosing a commission-free stock broker or low-cost robo-advisor. The average investor may find value elsewhere.
Is Edward Jones Legit?
Before investing your hard-earned money in investment products, it’s essential to do your research into the company. We like to check the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website for reviews, complaints, and accreditation to determine whether a business is legit.
On the BBB website, Edward Jones has an average rating of 1.46 out of five stars across 36 customer reviews. Although the investment firm has been in business for over 100 years, it’s concerning to see that it is not BBB-accredited. The company closed 20 complaints in the last 12 months.
Another website that we like to check before recommending a company is Consumer Affairs. On this site, Edward Jones has an average rating of 1.7 out of five stars across 174 customer reviews. That’s something concerning for novice or aspiring investors.
Most of the customers complained about the lack of professionalism of the financial advisors working at Edward Jones. Some criticized the level of communication, while others did not recommend opening an account due to the excessively high fees.
It’s important to note that the law does not prevent financial advisors from prioritizing their needs first. In most cases, they’ll recommend investment products to make commissions or bonuses without considering the client’s investment goals.
Although Edward Jones does not have positive customer reviews, it is a business operating since the Great Depression. Whether or not we recommend the company is another question.
Final Thoughts: Should You Open an Account with Edward Jones?
Edward Jones has been around for over 100 years, and the investment firm has many different products to offer, such as retirement accounts (traditional and Roth IRAs), mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and more.
However, the company has a ridiculous fee structure that only high-net-worth investors would be comfortable paying. It doesn’t offer a gold IRA, and the investment firm has a lot of negative reviews on the internet.
We recommend that you research the other IRA companies mentioned in this Edward Jones review. They can help set up an individual retirement account, and the fees are much lower than this investment firm.
About Tim Schmidt
Tim Schmidt is an Entrepreneur who has covered retirement investing since 2012. He started IRA Investing to share his expertise in using his Self-Directed IRA for alternative investments. His views on retirement investing have been highlighted in USA Today, Business Insider, Tech Times, and more. He invested with Goldco.
