Almost any type of investment is allowed within an IRA, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, unitary investment trusts (ITU), exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and even real estate. To be safe, public accountants should emphasize investment vehicles for which established markets exist, such as stocks, mutual funds, bonds, bank certificates of deposit, annuities (although they may not be the best for an IRA, since IRA funds are already protected against taxes), real estate, Gold IRA's and select currencies. $94 billion is invested in self-managed IRAs, in which many people choose to exercise the freedom of this retirement account and invest their money in stocks and bonds themselves instead of using mutual funds.