Mining equities would be the fastest way to meet that demand.

It's already happening on a small scale. Don Coxe, the Strategy Advisor to BMO Financial Group and consistently named one of top portfolio strategists in the world, stated that, "Gold has in the past decade evolved from being a curiosity, to a speculative investment, to a sound and necessary investment." He then urged investors to "emphasize the miners at the expense of the bullion ETFs."

David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff, wrote, "If we accept the premise that gold is acting like a currency, in a world where central banks in many countries are bent on depreciating their own paper money, one could conclude that bullion will rally against all these units. Gold miners offer an attractive way to play this bullion rally. Because input costs tend to be heavily concentrated in the early years of a rally, history has shown that gold miners' shares tend to dramatically outperform bullion in the later stages of a gold bull market."

And it won't be just investors buying stocks; sovereign wealth funds will buy entire companies. China bought Jaguar Mining in November - a producer that can barely turn a profit - for a 74% premium, double the typical amount. China National Gold Group purchased five gold mining companies over the past four years, spending almost a half billion dollars to do so.

Then there was this from Mineweb last week: "A consortium of Indian companies led by Steel Authority of India has turned its sights to gold and copper exploration."

And this: "Afghanistan has now invited bids to develop gold mines in the provinces of Badakhshan and Ghazni..."

Keep in mind that the market cap of gold stocks is small - Apple and Exxon Mobil are each bigger than the entire gold sector. The boring water-utilities industry is almost three times larger. The sometimes-hated life insurance industry is more than 11 times bigger.

Meanwhile, most institutional investors are underweight gold and gold stocks, if they own them at all. The average pension fund devotes approximately 0.15% of its assets to gold stocks; doubling its holdings - still just one-third of one percent - would represent $47 billion of investment in the gold industry. If they wanted 1% exposure, $117 billion would flood our sector. And don't forget about the needs of hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, mutual funds, private equity funds, private wealth funds, insurance companies, ETFs, and millions of worldwide retail investors like me and you.

All these entities could easily view a shift into gold stocks as a viable way to gain exposure to precious metals. It'll be the next logical step to take - maybe the only sensible step available if the supply of physical metal remains constrained. It will feel like the most natural thing in the world for them to do.

Make no mistake: if this bull market continues, gold stocks will truly soar. An increasingly desperate clamor for exposure to gold could light a short fuse for our market sector. It's not here yet, but when the rush starts, it will be both breathtaking and life-changing.

Are you positioned?

[We're convinced that we have the best of the best producers in BIG GOLD, but it's the juniors that will bring the potentially life-changing gains that Jeff discusses above.