by Adam Hamilton
Zeal LLC
The gold-mining stocks have enjoyed enormous gains in their young bull market this year, trouncing all other sectors. Naturally this radical outperformance has led to surging popular interest in this usually-obscure contrarian sector. New investors are wondering how to best track its performance, about which gold-stock benchmark is the definitive one to use. Something of a battle is brewing over new versus old.
Benchmarks are very important for stock trading. Their performances over any given span really help investors and speculators quickly understand how a sector is faring relative to others. Just one easily-digestible number distills down the collective performances of many stocks. Benchmarks also provide standards by which the performances of both individual stocks and individual traders can be objectively judged.