October 27, 2008 was the gold mining sector’s Black Monday, the day nearly every stock hit rock bottom. Hindsight makes it plain they got caught in the violent deleveraging that sucked down every equities market in the world.

The broader markets were of course making year-to-date lows at the same time, and unlike gold stocks, they continued falling after a short intermission. In fact, the Dow fell 2,000 points after Obama was elected. In sharp contrast, the mining stocks went on a tear. Between November ’08 and January ’09, many of our BIG GOLD picks made substantial gains, rising anywhere from 45% to 149%.

This good news isn’t the whole story, of course; many mining stocks saw percentage losses greater than the broader market averages during the Big Selloff. But given the fact that gold stocks started rebounding while the broader markets continued lower, the BIG GOLD portfolio ended the

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Gold moved marginally higher by the first hour of trading in New York, fell off until mid-morning, then pushed higher again but not at a very brisk clip, before going flat through the Globex to finish at $916.20/oz., up $6.20. For the week, gold was up 3.4%.

Platinum stayed primarily within the $1140 to $1150 range for the entire day, ending essentially flat at $1147, up $2. For the week, platinum added a solid 5.2%.

Silver was up and down all day in an attempt to breach the $14 barrier, and in the end closed barely short, prolonging its win streak by adding 20 cents to $13.99. For the week, silver shot up a very robust 12%. (Click here for charts)

Though platinum was flat, gold and silver both notched significant gains yesterday, with silver continuing to lead the way, as it has for the past several sessions. The usual

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Trading without indicators is like running blind and it encourages emotional trading that is the bane of successful investors. Below are brief descriptions of 5 of the most popular gold mining company indices and how they should be used in conjunction with the price of gold to determine the future movement of gold bullion and gold mining stocks. (For a much more indepth understanding and analysis of these indices please refer to my recent article entitled “Gold Indexes: Comparing and Evaluating the HUI, XAU, GDX, XGD and CDNX”.)
The HUI Index
The AMEX Gold BUGS (Basket of Unhedged Gold Stocks) Index (HUI) is a modified equal dollar weighted index of 15 large cap (80%) and medium cap (19.5%) gold mining companies that do not hedge their gold beyond 1.5 years. The 3 largest companies make up approx. 37%* of the index by weight with the remaining 12 companies, at 4-6% each, making …

Zimbabwe's gold mining industry, Africa's third biggest nine years ago, is fighting with the central bank to pay for the gold the government has bought. Gold mining companies are obliged by law to sell their gold to the central. The central bank owes more than 30 million dollars to the mines. Without the payments, one of the countries most reslient industries stands to go bankrupt.