Gold and Silver as an investment...

I can't pretend to be an expert when it comes to buying or selling either silver or gold bars . I do know that there are many people who believe buying gold and/or silver is a smart part of an investment portfolio and there are those that feel that it's not. I can look at the prices of gold listed on the Commodity Furtures as an example today it's 647.10. I can see it's down $2.30 from yesterday. My father was one of those who believed in purchasing gold because he felt that if things ever got bad, especially since the dollar is no longer backed by gold, he would have something of value. He felt there was a physical advantage to buying gold or silver over stocks, the correct term for that would be "tangible assets". Which does make sense, if a company fails, the stocks are nothing but pretty paper. The important part I have learned in researching is to make sure you go with a firm that is reliable, Monex as one example, has been in business since 1967.