In the past year, SPDR Gold Shares
The difference in performance has been duly noted by both analysts and investors, and any bullish projection on the miners would be considered intrepid. Street One Financial President Scott Freeze has made that decision though, saying, "If you look at miners on a historical basis, they go through periods of lagging gold futures and then a period of substantial outperformance. We've seen capitulation with the miners, we've already been there. Since the miners have already been lagging, they offer more upside than downside now compared to a fund like GLD."
He also states that inflation could explode sometime over the next 15 months because of the previous rounds of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve, so gold is positioned to outperform even other precious metals.
Business section: Investing ideas
If the inflationary environment that Freeze believes becomes reality, will gold or miners outperform? Below is a list of gold mining and exploration stocks that have seen institutional purchases over the current quarter. Do you think the metal or the companies are better investments?
List sorted by market cap. (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
1. Yamana Gold
2. Allied Nevada Gold
3. NovaGold Resources
Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.