Some excerpts from an article in the National/Financial Post headed "What Changed in 2010 - Gold Entered the Mainstream:"

Silver Wheaton Corp. has a market value of roughly $13 billion - bigger than Telus, Loblaws, Magna. It has 24 employees and is only six years old. That means the market cap is more than $500 million per employee. The company has what is perhaps the perfect business model for this environment: It buys byproduct silver streams from producing mines at around $4 per ounce and then sells them on to eager buyers. The company has seized more than 30% of all the investment dollars going into the silver space. Mr. Telfer, the CEO, says "If anyone thought silver was going to $30 they never would have sold any of their silver to Silver Wheaton. We had no idea that would happen."

Gold and silver companies make up more than 14% of the TSX Composite yet apart from the biggest names they remain far below the radar for most generalist investors.

During the bubble in technology Cisco and Nortel were trading in the 70, 90 times earnings range. Barrick is now trading at 12 times. This is not a "gold bubble."

In order to get more attention the major gold companies need to pay dividends and that process has already started.