Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of several gold stocks -- both large and small -- plunged in early trading Tuesday, as gold prices sank on a rallying U.S. dollar.

So what: Small-cap gold miners are getting hit particularly hard on gold's decline (about 210 basis points), with Banro (AMEX: BAA), U.S. Gold (AMEX: UXG), New Gold (NYSE: NGD), and Vista Gold (AMEX: VGZ) all down about 6%. Of course, bigger names haven't exactly escaped the pain, as Yamana (NYSE: AUY), Goldcorp (NYSE: GG), and Kinross (NYSE: KGC) have shed roughly 4%.

Now what: With U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pledging late Monday that the government will look to "preserve confidence" in the dollar, it's no surprise that gold is taking a beating this morning. Although today's plunge might offer fiat paper-fearing investors a nice entry point, I'm skeptical about jumping on the gold bandwagon. With so many dividend-paying blue chips sitting at verifiably cheap prices, buying into red-hot, tough-to-value gold doesn't seem like the best move Fools can make.