by Craig Hemke, Sprott Money:

The price of gold is up over $100 year-to-date and yet precious metal enthusiasts are suffering through some of the worst sentiment and depression on record. Why? It’s hard to say, but the performance of the mining shares thus far in 2023 has a lot to do with it.

Let’s start with the gold price. As I type this on June 20, COMEX gold is up $118 on the year or about 6.5%. This is right in line and moving toward the annual average gain since the new century began, as you can see below in this chart from Ronnie Stoeferle and his team at Incrementum.