re: "on a huge down day [which is the norm now], more would have been in the green for the day...."
That goes to show you that most of the gold mining stocks have gold in the ground... which is a far cry from having it in hand.
Gold mining is a terrible line of work. It's expensive and dangerous to mine the gold, and the good mines never last all that long. That's why gold is rare.
Junior mining stocks don't even usually have good mines. Often, they're nothing more than plots of land with good drill results - and you can debate about how good or representative they actually are. (A rich vein intersection can sound awesome in a mining report, but if it is narrow and short, it might have just been a lucky hit. It's usually better to have GOOD results spread over a wide area.)
The only real hope junior goldmining shareholders usually have is if their companies get bought out by someone else - but for every mining stock that actually gets acquired, there are probably a hundred others that tell a good tale about why they SHOLD be takeover targets... though that never seems to happen.
I've got a few miners that have outperformed gold - including one that's been a 12-bagger in the last 3 years. But, by and large, I would have been better off staying out of gold mining stocks and just loading up on physical.
Maybe that will change in the future. Some pundits are making that argument right now.
I've strayed off topic a bit with this post - but what I'm trying to say is that most gold stocks are not profitable. And, even those that are, are priced higher than what their profits alone warrant.
When speculators leave the market in droves as they have in the last two days, such stocks get clobbered.
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