Vacendak

As @HelpingHands mentioned, it is indeed possible for Sterling to go up.

Amazingly it has actually gone up recently! Some $0.05 or so more than the latest weekly nadir.

Still some way to go to $2 though...

Backing Ravinella and Rebnah here: Buying gold/silver is a LONG term commitment/investment.

Assuming we are not insanely rich: Buy some shares, preferably highly traded to get a tight spread, one would be lucky to make money within a week even with a torrid market upturn. Remember: Buy at offer price, sell at bid, it costs to buy, we get taxed to buy (stamp duty), it costs to sell (I am even being nice and assume profits below CGT threshold or sold from ISA wrapper). That's already some significant % of the investment price, a serious hurdle prior to making the first few £ of profit.

Buy some precious metals: It costs a lot more proportionally to buy as the premium is usually way bigger than a spread on a share price. It has to be delivered and likely insured during delivery (more costs). You want to sell it? You need to deliver it: More time, more efforts and more money. The hurdle to actually making a profit can easily be over 30% of the invested sum in the case of silver once the VAT is taken into account.

Gold/silver drops by 10% or more within a month... So what? Even if it had gone up by 20% it would have been hard to make a few pennies.

Gold/silver drops by 10% over five years? Granted, that would be a serious loss; but unless one bought their gold/silver one the way up to the silly heights of a few years ago, that is unlikely to be the case. Right now, I am losing big time on my gold and silver (bought most of my current holdings some six months ago), but I bought as a hedge for my portfolio.

Want to make money? Invest on the stockmarket. Want to be sure not to lose your shirt while buying shares? Buy some gold and hold onto it. I do not expect to make money on my gold/silver, but I sure as hell expect that gold to store some value over time.

Also, but that is purely subjective: Gold and silver coins are far more beautiful to look at than a spreadsheet showing my portfolio... and that in itself is well worth the half dozen years of waiting before feeling richer.