For thousands of years, in good times and bad, precious metals have offered owners a solid, long-term and tangible way to hold and protect wealth. Unlike paper investments (like stocks, bonds and currencies) that can and have become worthless overnight, precious metals have true intrinsic value . . . and, hence, will always be valuable. What’s more, in recent years, precious metals have also been utilized as short-term trading products, offering traders opportunity to profit as precious metals prices fluctuate, sometimes dramatically, on world markets.