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Occasionally one is sucked in, as I was this morning. I couldn’t resist a line saying “Don’t buy gold” – that, instead, there were three commodities which offered super-duper gains. I just had to see what was better than the yellow metal in these perilous economic times.

After signing up for the newsletter, it turns out that the way to fame and fortune is to buy companies with rare earths, platinum and silver.

It makes the head hurt too much to start going into why “don’t buy gold” is, well, a ridiculous thing to say. Outcrop has been over the ground many times and Dryblower was very convincing on the subject earlier this week. In fact, London’s The Daily Telegraph today quotes Anthony Bolton of the Fidelity China Special Situations investment trust – the man they term a “legendary fund manager” – as arguing that gold is the only commodity one should be buying.

Bolton’s argument is that commodities enthusiasts are five years too late and that 2006 was the time to get in when the whole world was growing above trend; that western economies are anaemic and he was not sure emerging market growth had enough grunt to keep commodities growing.

Moreover, commodities are measured in US dollars, a currency in decline. “If commodities were measured in a stronger currency, then the recent rallies might have been different,” he added.

Bolton is now holding only one commodities stock – a company that owns a gold mine. His reasoning (as we’ve said here before) is that gold is the place to be as the West stagnates because, unlike the others, it is more a currency than a commodity.

If you’ve ever watched CNBC in the late afternoon, when they are broadcasting from London ahead of the European open, you may well have caught Robin Griffiths from Cazenove Capital. He’s one of the old school – pin-striped suits and the look of someone who would enjoy a good lunch. And he doesn’t pull punches.

This is what he said on CNBC last week: “I think not owning gold is a form of insanity. It may even show unhealthy masochistic tendencies.” He thinks the greenback is headed for oblivion; gold, by contrast, has been on the rise for 10 years and will continue on that trend.

Then there’s John Embry of Sprott Asset Management saying this week that gold is going to go through the roof. The market in Asia is “on fire” and all this money printing will just fan the flames.

OK, so that’s the “don’t buy gold” advice put in its place.

Rare earths, platinum and silver may well be good investments. Or perhaps that should be “were”

Had a look at some of the price gains of the rare earth wannabes? There are plenty of these on the Australian Securities Exchange these days. Given that it can take at least a decade (and Alkane has been working at Dubbo for more than 20 years, while Mt Weld was discovered 30 years ago) for a rare earths mine to get into business, one would suggest that this sector has already got ahead of itself.

But let’s stop right there before we get too bogged down in a commodity-by-commodity refutation or support. Actually, you could argue the toss with Bolton: just look at copper’s recent performance, and what is happening in the specialty metals like antimony, molybdenum and tungsten (and don’t get me started on tin).

Don’t you, like me, sometimes feel your head aching with all the forecasts out there?

This week we’re being told to get out of lithium before it’s too late. TRU Group of Tucson, Arizona, is reported as predicting that the lithium market will suffer from huge overcapacity nine years from now.

Looking at all the projects in the pipeline, TRU reckons that in 2020 the world’s mines will be producing double the quantity of lithium that is being consumed.

But hasn’t lithium been one of the glamour plays in recent years?

Lithium on the way out? Perhaps not. Here’s another headline this week: “Lithium in, palladium out as electric car bandwagon develops”

And dare we make the point that, over the years, a good many analysts have been proved very wrong. We only need unearth some bearish gold forecasts of yesteryear to see that.

Most forecasts and predictions are become nothing more than white noise.

Look at the long-term trends. Paper money increasingly worthless, the world running out of cheaply mined metals and (particularly important when it comes to things like lithium and rare earths) those pesky scientists coming up with some discovery of a substitute that changes the whole game.

Sure, rare earths, platinum and silver. But sure, too, gold – and just about everything else. Eventually.