Frank Holmes asks, "What’s behind today’s record disparity between equity and bullion prices?"

Part of it may be due to the underperformance of the explorers and developers, which, TD says, “have been hit the hardest.” The chart below shows gold miners by capitalization and their returns since April 2011. Explorers and developers have declined the most, losing 21 percent, small- and mid-cap producers have declined 6 percent and large producers lost 5 percent.

Because of the dramatic price decline in these early-stage companies, investors have the opportunity to purchase explorers & developers (E&D), often referred to as juniors, at about half of the company’s net asset value (NAV). In simplest terms, the NAV means assets minus liabilities. In fact, you can see from the chart that the current price-to-NAV level for E&D equities is sitting near record low levels…levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008.

TD found that in seven of the past 10 rallies, gold equities beat gold - averaging a beta of 1.4 times.

Where does SAN fit the pattern above? Is SAN an explorer and developer or a small/midcap prodsucer?

Only time will tell.

Parabolic would be good delivering the final reward for shers infinite patience!

RUF