Gold (GLD), Silver (SLV) and combination precious metal ETFs like (CEF) have been going up lately due to all the BS in Washington. As long as people are scared or wary of whats going on, precious metals will rise (along with metals like copper as well). They seem like a safe bet to the average person, but they're actually quite volatile and if you
don't keep an eye on your portfolio (at least check it daily even if you don't make any trades) you can be in for a nasty surprise when they all of a sudden drop like a rock for a while. Personally. I like the ETFs like GLD, SLV and CEF and I jump in and out of them according to how the marker in general is acting and have done alright.
I recommend to anyone wanting to learn more and get some experience before actually risking real money, check out
UpDown.com, it's an investing website. They give you a million virtual dollars and you can invest them any way you like, but you can't put more than $200,000 in any one thing. The reasoning behind that is that you don't want all your eggs in one basket. Diversification spreads the risk among several (or even many) investments and increases your chances of making a profit. You'll see stock symbols like (F) for Ford, (AAPL) for Apple and (CEF) for Canadian Central Fund [an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund)] made up of gold and silver both. You can access Charts and graphs for 1, 5, and 30 days as well as 3, 6, and 12 months, and 5 and 10 year periods to give you a better idea which way whatever you want to invest in has been going. You can gain knowledge and experience without risking any real money of your own. If you discover you're pretty good at picking winners, start investing for real. If you suck at picking winners, pay a good trustworthy financial advisor (they do exist, believe it or not) and have them guide you. Putting your money in a savings account or even a money market account won't keep you ahead of inflation; only stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other true investments can do that. PS, insurance is
not an investment, regardless of what any smooth talkin' slick agent may try to get you to believe. Insurance is insurance, the "investment" or savings part of insurance is just a scam to use your money to generate income for them, which you should be doing for yourself. Check out
UpDown.com to try your hand at investing... it's a lot of fun when you make a bunch of money. Trust me...