RE:Miners ticking down year after yearThe lag on equities is frustrating for sure. However...
1. Miners profits were not what was expected in the past several years - due to inflationary costs (e.g price of oil), political issues, etc. (I would argue that EDV has faired better than most). Increased gold prices have, in many cases, only covered inflationary costs making profits flat.
2. M&A activity at large premiums, has been subdued (holding back valuations on gold equities).
3. Gold equities have been out of favour for coming up to 8 years. Cheap money went into technology stocks. PoG must go first, followed by miners. Big increases will finally get gold equity investor attention. Gold has been out of favour with the masses (especially in NA, where a lot of the $ are still). As Rick Rule says gold = .5% of all invested capital, down from a historicla ave. rate of 1.5 - 2%.
The anecdote to the above 3 factors:
1. If the PoG rises a few hundred $, profits will be explode higher, despite inflaion and real and perceived risks. Price trails earnings & CF. SP for gold equities reflects earnings more than PoG. The next say 10% increase in the PoG, will double, quadruple, 10X, (more?) the bottom lines of well run companies. Increased profitabilty due to lower oil prices are slowly being factored in as well, qtr after qtr.
2. M&A activity will pick up and mid-tier and near producers will garner large premiums again - with higher PoG. Cheaper to acquire than explore and build out mines.
3. The investing public (Joe six-pack) is slowly waking up to currency debasement through excess money printing by CB's and the resultant inflation. Once the masses realize that Gold is one of the few (and best?) ways to preserve purchasing power, there will be a flood of money into gold first, then gold miners (and explorers).