If you ever watch late night TV, they have these cheesy ads encouraging you to buy gold. The claim is always that gold prices are going up and that it's such a great investement. I've noticed these ads over the last 10 years if not longer. Long enough, that I think we have data to actually confirm if the claim is true - which is that gold was a great investment. What do the financial and banking guru's here say: Was the claim true from 10 years ago that Gold is one of the best investments you can make? How about today - is it likely to still be so? (if it was at all)?

My problem with investing in gold is that it essentially has no intrinsic value. It's valuable because people think it is. It's not a corporation of a bunch of experts that you can use to build bridges or educate people. You can't eat it, drive your car with it, etc. Things that are valuable only because other people say they are fill me with a discomfort as an iinvestment.