Buying gold? Consider this instead...

Meanwhile, the yellow metal gold continues to flirt with its all time high levels. Last heard, it was comfortably perched well above the US$ 1,000 per ounce mark. And it may not be done yet by any stretch of imagination. Experts are of the opinion that it could easily double from here. And that includes Jim Rogers, one of the world's most respected commodity investors. Speaking to Moneynews, the fiery Rogers opined, "If you go back and adjust . . . for inflation back in 1980, gold should be over $2,000 an ounce. In my view it will get there again sometime in the next decade." Please note the last few words. He believes that gold would double sometime in the next decade. In other words, it may have started to look stretched from a near term perspective. In fact, even Rogers is not buying at current levels. But he also mentioned that if it goes down from here, he could once again start buying.

While awaiting a dip in gold prices could be the best thing to do right now, you may not want to do the same for silver and instead start buying today itself. Yes, you've read that right. Taking into account the fundamentals, silver is looking more attractive than gold from a long term perspective. In fact, it has already beaten the yellow metal so far this year, rising three times more than the 17% returns earned by gold. Moreover, the fundamentals of silver seem to be more compelling than that of the yellow metal. As per DNA Money, the amount of silver out there is just 20% of the gold and secondly, silver due to its best in class heat and electrical conductivity and versatility could be used into a lot of applications, thus making it far more useful than just being a storehouse of value. In view of these factors, silver definitely needs to be considered seriously if one has to diversify away from fiat currencies.