Which is a safer/better investment: Stocks or Commodities...? I was told commodities by several people...

It all depends on your approach/risk management. The fundamental issue is that a commodity investment is quite leveraged.

Example:
Let's assume you have $100,000.

Case 1:
You invest $100,000 in stocks.

Case 2:
You invest with initial margin $100,000 in commodities. [you use a full $100,000 of buying power to buy commodities]

Well commodities have implied leverage as high as 10:1. Case two is extremely leveraged and risky. It's not safe and it's not an investment.

However, you could have a Case 3.
Because of the implicity leverage you invest $10,000 in initial margin in commodities and keep the $90,000 as excess margin. Well, this investment is much safer and might offer a return profile that is attractive.

So, it depends.

This is a very broad-based question because there are many different classes of stocks, as well as commodities. One could write a book about the differences, some companies are tied strongly with commodities markets; XOM comes to mind. I will say, commodities are not considered safe in most circles-they have the potential for WIDE unpredictable price swings.

You will probably want to read some books on the matter, but generally commodities bear a strong correlation with inflation-if the dollar is losing value, individuals flock to investments such as gold, silver, etc. An unstable economy will often generate a high demand for commodities, driving the prices upward.

Most stocks, especially cyclical ones, move in general unison with the business cycle. Therefore, corporate profits rise when individuals are not nervous about the economy. Although a well diversified stock portfolio (which would generally include some commodity exposure if the form of certain stocks) can help you to avoid risk that is inherent in an individual firm, you can't diversify away market risk, although international exposure can help you to work with it. In short, stocks cover a wide range of risk and return factors, but commodities by nature represent pure speculation-high risk but also higher possible returns.