Stocks have a closing price.
Every day at four o'clock, a number exists. Nobody invents it. Millions of people agreed on it.
Gold bars in a vault do not work that way.
There is no bell. There is no tape. There is a metal with a public price, sitting inside a coin with a private one.
So somebody has to decide what your account is worth.
That somebody is your custodian. Once a year. Usually December 31.
And that one number does more work than almost anything else in your retirement.
It sets your required distribution. It sets your fees, sometimes. It is what your heirs will see.
Most people never ask how it is calculated.
Let us fix that.