http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/frank-holmes/2011/06/20/will-gold-equity-investors-strike-gold

This year’s carnage has created a substantial opportunity to buy healthy, gold mining companies at historically low prices compared to gold bullion. Cooper says that “the net result is that gold companies can now be purchased for about their intrinsic value for the spot price of bullion.”

Historically, one could purchase about 4.4. units of the XAU for the price of an ounce of gold. That ratio fell to less than 3 units per ounce in the mid-1990s when gold prices bottomed but has averaged 5.2 units during the current bull market.

You can see from the chart that today’s level is 46 percent above the historical norm at 7.6 units to one ounce of gold. By this measure, one can purchase shares of gold mining companies at their second-cheapest level in nearly 30 years. The extreme was in 2008 during the depths of the financial crisis; many share values quadrupled off of those levels.