I try to stay away from anything related to the stock market, because I know nothing about companies, what they do, how to evaluate them..etc. I also have this kind of irrational fear that the company would either go belly up or their shares for some reason would be struck from the exchange-- I am not even sure what to call this, this is how ignorant of the stock market I am.

I want to own physical gold, because it's the only thing I understand.

Precious metals should be part of your portfolio but gold is generally a very poor investment. Look at the price of gold vs. the stock market. You would have left A LOT of money on the table if you had a substantial portion of your wealth in gold. If you want to hedge against inflation/hyper-inflation, there are plenty of other assets to invest in that are higher-yielding.

I prefer silver personally.

Really? Like what?



Can I ask why?

Plenty of things: stock indices, real estate, other commodities, etc. Bonds/treasuries used to be good but those have been kept artificially low for over a decade now. At the end of the day, your goal should be to mitigate risk which is why you want to diversify. Get a bunch of everything and you'll be fine.

Lower cost of ownership. I'm able to stack more coins and bars. Gold costs so much that if someone burglarized my house and took it, I'd be butthurt. I have my silver everywhere.

So how come you don't use safety deposit boxes from a bank?

They are expensive and I don't trust the banks to not happy merchant me.

What do you mean by "happy merchant" you? You mean banks will open up your boxes and steal your gold?

Do you trust random bank employees with your valuable personal possessions? I do not.