Q: Last week you mentioned that real estate securities were the best performing investments in the past decade.

Having lived through bubbles in technology stocks and real estate, many investors have grown nervous lately about gold. Its price quadrupled in the past decade to a record $1,227 an ounce in December, before falling back near $1,100.

The decade we have left behind will go down as one many would like to forget, but old times and lessons learned should not be forgotten.

The stock-market crash that began the decade taught ordinary people that investing in stocks was risky. But that didn't stop them from spending the 2000s playing an even riskier game — real-estate speculation.

Barring a last-minute miracle, the broad U.S. stock market will end its worst decade in history this week, underperforming almost every other asset class including most foreign stock markets, U.S. bonds, gold, oil, other commodities and even real estate. U.S.... Stock market - United States Treasury security - Business - Stocks and Bonds - Investing