@Scott: Good perspective.
There's no silver bullet to investing. To an extent, we are blinded by the times in which we invest. I'll listen to just about anyone. Doesn't mean I have to follow their advice.
In terms of making sense of investing ... Pick up 2 or 3% here; 10% there; and another 25% somewhere else. Isn't that really how we learn?
I find Cramer a likable sort, although full of bluster. Perhaps he's misplaced in the role of financial commentator. Can you imagine him in the role of TV Weatherman? :)

Looks like its having a good day today:
AIG +2.73
SHLD +5.27
JOE +1.47
FNMA +7.52

No desire to become an apologist for gold - or any other investment. I've already stated that equities and corporate bonds are better alternatives over very long time frames. I do believe, however, that all investments have their "season". And to argue that gold is never useful to some in hedging portfolio risk is akin to arguing that short-selling of equities or holding cash (even at near 0 rates) can never be useful. The latter two are recognized ways for some to hedge the aggressive sides of a balanced portfolio. To that extent, gold may play a role.
More clarity as to the nature of "Bills" on Siegel's chart would be appreciated. It's likely a reference to T-Bills. My understanding is that these come in varying maturities. The 91-day T-Bill rate is often quoted, but 1-year T-Bills are available. I wouldn't (purposely) post data with as ambiguous a nomenclature as Siegel's reference to "Bills".
Regarding investing in T-Bills, it's hard for me to understand how they would have approached gold's return through appreciation during the post-2000 time-frame. Let's take a look. In 2000 gold was selling for $280 per Troy Ounce. This morning it's quoted at $1230. That works out to a compounded annual return of better than 10% over that 15-year span. I don't know what the 1-year T-Bill has returned over 15 years, but it's probably considerably less.
Gold Price Chart: http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_prices.pdf

$198.00 yr. on Morningstar, will give you a portfolio analysis (xray) in seconds, every day of the year.....that's 50 cents a day...almost free to know where your at, for Self management vs the market as a whole...if that's what you wish...today

FYI: Mad Money host Jim Cramer, best known for offering stock tips on cable TV, is quickly becoming famous for taking what would seem for him a contrarian viewpoint — that investors should avoid stock-picking mutual funds like the plague.
Actively-managed funds are in one business and one business only, Cramer argues. They must grow their client base to maximize their own fee income, regardless of performance
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mutual-fund-investors-are-hosed-jim-cramer-2015-02-12/print

FYI: I think the biggest change in personal investing over the next 10 years will be that passive portfolio management (rebalancing a portfolio of index funds or ETFs and tax-loss harvesting when holdings are in taxable accounts) will no longer be a service for which people expect to pay money. That is, portfolio management will, in most cases, be free.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/02/11/in-the-future-portfolio-management-will-be-free/tab/print/

I own both PJP and PHSZX. PJP beats PHSZX since PJP inception in mid 2005, with much smaller volatility, and it is more tax efficient as well.

FYI: After another rally today, the S&P 500 is now just 5 points below its prior all-time highs reached at the end of December. As shown below, the index and six of ten sectors are now in overbought territory, with Consumer Discretionary leading the way higher. The one sector that has not participated in the fun recently is Utilities. In fact, the sector is now trading in oversold territory as the rest of the market rallies.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2015/2/12/sp-500-approaching-new-highs.html?printerFriendly=true

@linter: LLJB was discussing KGGIX, which is a "diversified" global all-cap fund which is really liking materials and Russia, whereas GLFOX is a non-diversified infrastructure fund with 39% in utilities and 43% in industrials. So I wasn't sure if infrastructure was of interest. Also, infrastructure funds, because of their exposure to utilities may not fare well in a rising interest rate environment, and hot money may migrate to other sectors. Surprisingly, GLFOX did well in the latest interest rate spike 4/21/2013 - 9/1/2013, when the 10 YR increased from 1.66 to 2.94%, whereas its competitors were no so fortunate as shown HERE.
@LLJB: Both funds are outstanding, but recent performance has been better for GLFOX which hedges its currency exposure. I suspect that GLFOX had some sort of hedge in place during the interest rate spike in 2013 as its performance was very different from its competitors.
Here is a nice white paper on infrastructure investing:
https://www.credit-suisse.com/pwp/am/downloads/marketing/infrastructure_ch_uk_lux_ita_scandinavia.pdf
Kevin

Total real return on stocks, bonds, bills, gold, US dollar, 1802-2012.
From Jeremy Siegel, Stocks for the Long Run, latest edition

Why Ted, Why?

Why not? Or why get so upset? LOL, it's someone who's been on the floor for 150 years, I think he may know a couple of things he picked up during the eons he's spent at the NYSE. The only issue is that CNBC doesn't actually let him talk beyond "sound bites". Not his fault.
Welcome to the modern day of sound bites and "tweets". Einstein could live today and if he tried to explain tremendous theories to the masses via social media, his PR person would go, "no no, Albert, you have to keep your genius under 140 characters." He'd ask why and then be informed that the modern day population has an attention span of under 140 seconds.
When Cashin has occasionally interviewed elsewhere (King World News a couple of times, at least), he's been highly informative. CNBC is, well, CNBC.

@Junkster - I hope we're both around in 20 years to compare the results. Pick your equities. You must be specific. For example, you can't say the S&P 500 because that changes over time. Unless the paper bill deteriorates both it and the gold bar will be the same as the day they went in the can. We will not be doing any adjustments inflationary or otherwise. $100 today in each of these items will be worth what in 20 years? Could be fun.
Lastly, do remember, I said that I view gold strictly as a collectible however right or wrong that view may be.

And maybe an incentive to live another 20 years. I am the least qualified person to select individual equities for the long run. So why not use VTSMX which pretty much covers the full spectrum of the stock market. Not only has that beaten gold the past 20 years but so has the mundane Merrill Lynch High Yield Master II Index (junk bonds) beaten gold. With stocks near all time highs and gold way off, you may begin with a bit of an advantage. So let's see.
I hate gold with a passion (silver even more) I will always remember gold above 800 in late 79 early 80 and silver at $50 an ounce in April 1980 and think they are both terrible investments, collectibles or whatever. So let's throw in that other dog silver in the 20 year contest with gold and VTSMX. Maybe I will have to eat my words in 20 years assuming I can even still eat by that age and don't have to be spoon fed. I will use tonight's closing prices as my basis

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000354100

@Junkster - I hope we're both around in 20 years to compare the results. Pick your equities. You must be specific. For example, you can't say the S&P 500 because that changes over time. Unless the paper bill deteriorates both it and the gold bar will be the same as the day they went in the can. We will not be doing any adjustments inflationary or otherwise. $100 today in each of these items will be worth what in 20 years? Could be fun.
Lastly, do remember, I said that I view gold strictly as a collectible however right or wrong that view may be.

You must be looking at Jeremy Siegel's Stocks For The Long Run. There he shows inflation adjusted Total Real Return Indexes 1802-1997. $1 invested in gold worth
84 cents!!!! $1 invested in stocks worth $558,965!!!!!

I do have that book, so it probably has influenced me. What i was thinking of specifically though is what seems to be called "The Parable of Joseph's Penny" wherein a single penny at compound interest of 1% becomes something like $4.5 Million, and at 2 pecent compounded becomes worth more than all the assets in the world. If an ounce gold was worth anything at all 2,000 years ago (and it certainly was), then the 12 or 13 hundred dollars you can get for it must represent a truly minuscule annualized rate of return.
On a similar note, one can take an ordinary piece of paper, tear it in half and put the pieces one on top of the other, tear it in half again......repeating this process only 50 times, and one will have a stack of paper that will rise way beyond the moon. Try it sometime! It is great fun
dryflower

Owned a few 1-oz K-Rands in the mid 80s. Beautiful coins. Had a slight reddish hue. I understand they add a bit of copper to harden them (unlike many other gold coins), as gold's a soft metal. Aesthetic value is very difficult to calculate and is in the eyes of the beholder. However, when you add-in the aesthetic value enjoyed in addition to the likely capital appreciation over time, I think it's a reasonable investment. I don't like the safety/security issues associated with such physical investments (assaying, storing, insuring, transporting, selling, etc.) Hell, I won't even wear a watch worth more than $25 in some locations I frequent. And than there's the ever present threat of government prohibition, restriction or regulation. For those reasons, we don't invest in physical pms or collectibles.
As far as owning the metal on paper, pms are just about the "rockiest" markets you can find. Prices are erratic and unpredictable. My experience is that it's a lot easier to lose money than to make money with them. I do own a small slice of PRPFX for diversity. The fund holds some gold and pms. That fund is one odd mix of assets, and I gravitate towards the "odd-man-out" type of investment for the sake of diversity (much to the chagrin of some formidable voices here).
There's a natural human tendancy to view the world through our own time-lense and to assume things will always remain the same. Based on most of our experience since around the mid 80s, equities appear the best alternative. Had you been investing in the 70s and early 80s you would likely have been looking more to hard assets as a safe haven or, believe it or not, at plain old cash. It was easy in the late 70's to pull in 15-20% annually simply by investing in money market funds. Who'd run the risk of buying equities with those types of returns on cash? Better be careful not to overlook bonds. Since long-term interest rates have been declining now for about 35 years, bonds have been great investments over that period. (Note to beginners: Interest rates do not always decline.)
I'd agree with another distinguished poster here that gold & commodities are not "winning" long term investments when held up against either equities or corporate bonds. The last two are growth-oriented and increase in value as the world's economies grow and prosper. Gold, on the other hand, tends to track both inflation and investor sentiment. (One component of that sentiment relates to perceived value of various paper currencies.) Since sentiment is difficult to define and quantitify, this probably accounts much for gold's erratic performance.

According to a test trade I just made, RAIIX appears to have a $500 minimum with an initial TF in Fidelity retirement accounts. In the past I have been willing to pay an initial TF because I typically buy a good chunk at one time.

I hear you @heezsafe, but 1.5% ER is reasonable for international small cap (non-institutional shares) and I'm on TDAmeritrade, which waives the load.

FYI: Healthcare sector exchange traded funds have been outpacing the broader markets and could remain healthy as rising profits diminish concerns over frothy valuations.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etftrends.com/2015/02/healthcare-etfs-have-more-room-to-run/