I do not short the market because that requires market participation, and currently I'm not participating. Price discovery has gone off the deep end in the market, and it's no longer rational. I try to stay away from activities I see as irrational. Well, other than aircraft ownership
Gold and Silver are good plays now, IMO, but most people buy ETFs, which are a terrible way to buy metals. The ETFs are contracts traders, and the contracts ofetn have 50-100 times the allocations (e.g. "owners") than physical metals actually exist. In other words, for each once of metal that exists, 100 ounces are sold. That works fine as long as nobody stands for actual delivery...
There are some ETFs like the Sprott Silver and Gold ETFs that are 100% allocated, and they simply buy metals as shares are bought so they always have allocation equal to their obligations.
Buying physical metals of course has storage and security concerns. To avoid some of that you can use a verified storage company like BullionVault -- When you buy an amount of metal, that metal is put aside with your name on it (e.g. you OWN the metal) in a vault in either the USA, Switzerland, or Singapore, your choice. BUT there is still counter-party risk involved.
If you want to be in the market and play gold and silver, you can invest in mining companies. The HUI index plays on that, but the whole sector has been bashed hard recently...I have theories on why that is. One could call this a possible bottom for the miners, but one could also be wrong.
Cash is nice, but with interest rates hovering near zero and far below real inflation, that is a holding action with no long term winning end game.
In the end I'd say there are very limited options for investing safely now. Productive farm land would be one good option that has shown great appreciation in the last ten years or so.