Ways to Profit as the “Yellow Metal” Zooms to $1,900 an Ounce in 2011

You're right of course. The mining company stocks are likely to be a sure way to invest. Possibly safer than investing in the metals themselves although I'm not entirely sure of that.

To me, speculating on investment stocks is really nothing more than a gamble... just like insuring your home is essentially a bet with the insurance company that your house won't catch fire.... but one that is usually tempered with an understanding of the market trends in the past, a knowledge of the present commodities trading and the current behavioral trends and future demands of the moment. I called them 'smart-asses' because by predicting a fall by gold to $1000 (down from say $1400), they're playing with the market by influencing the trade (or they're hoping to). According to nearly everyone else in the world, gold is likely to continue upwards. Perhaps they know something the others don't? Either way, the ones shifting large volumes are often the very same people who stand to gain by influencing those buying and selling. Bad investment advice in international stock (including a large investment in foreign gold) cost my father's company VERY dearly in the 1990s after taking advice from Westp@c's (cough!) a 'major bank's' top financial advisers. I was forced to sign an indemnity agreement with the banking institution responsible on the matter... a document that I can only describe in retrospect as a form of 'blackmail to keep their execs from being sued for their negligence'. It was quite some time ago but I seem to recall that the bank was told to drop certain gold/coin related investments... but they didn't do as told because they were making so much money on the subject themselves. Repeated requests were still not met, even when the stocks began to fall. The bank advisers were insisting the trend was going to change and at one point even refused to follow instructions. Eventually the market dropped and the money (a vast sum even by today's standards) was lost. In a day when trading was without the benefit of email paper-trails etc and all agreements were taken on word or by phone, the bank tried everything to get out of the mess they'd created and to avoid compensation for their self-inflicted losses. There's a lot more to it that what I've mentioned here and some of it contributed to the problem or exasperated it further. Hundreds of people's lives were affected through the company losses. But bad investment advice and a failure to follow the client's requests was the catalyst for most of the problems.

Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. The cost to myself included two properties and my new home that I designed and had built through the company... and I had no involvement with the investment situation - this was just from the knock-on effect through the family. So smart-asses they are. I would certainly listen to a financial adviser's advice today because they do this for a living and have a better understanding that I would (or so I believe). But in the end, and after listening to them, I'd rather make my own decisions on what I invest in. At the moment, I like the idea of both gold and silver as an ideal investment ... but probably for different reasons to other people: I just think it's interesting and in a way, it's kind of fun. Hand someone a half-kilo of Gold or even a 1kg Silver Ingot and their faces light up when they feel the weight of it. It's interesting to read about it here on the forums and to see what other people are doing.

As Tributer said above, Gold is a great investment. It may again fall below $700 per ounce (and it is said that it may do so someday soon) and that would be a great time to buy. I personally WISH I'd invested in gold when it was a mere $350-$400 an ounce. There's a guy at Sofala who is said to have bought 16kg of nuggets from his neighbors back when it was that low ... and he's made a LOT of money selling off those pieces recently. I think he invested rather well.