'The joy has gone out of it' - unending bear market is grinding down gold miners

There is a big disconnect between gold prices and gold miners, noted panelists on Kitco Roundtable. On Friday mining audiences manager Michael McCrae, Kitco Correspondent Paul Harris and David Erfle with the juniorminerjunky.com recorded Roundtable at the Precious Metal Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado. During the first quarter of the year, gold futures traded above $2,000. Since then, the metal has mostly traded within a healthy band of $1,900 to $2,000. Yet, the gold mining index, the GDX, is down 3% year-to-date, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite is up nearly one-third. Gold mining shares..."look like the gold price, you just have to turn the charts upside down," noted Erfle. "It's an amazing dichotomy."Erfle said there are just better options for investors with elevated inflation, good rates on T-bills and other parts of the market showing more promise. Harris noted the toll the gold market is taking on investors and companies. "It's grinding down the management teams," said Harris "People have commented to me that they love the sector...but the joy has gone out of it, because it's relentless—the endless calls from disgruntled investors about when it's going to turn around." Kitco Roundtable is sponsored by Snowline Gold.