The senior gold mining companies have been out of favour for a while but they are now so cheap in terms of earnings that they are actually becoming value stocks in terms of forward P/E ratios and not just reserves.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/454871-gold-miners-a-buying-opportunity

When we look at forward P/E ratios (one year from now) and assume gold is steady at these levels. We get a weighted average P/E ratio of 9,7. This means that it takes 10 years for someone to be in the money. Historically, everything under a P/E ratio of 10 is a good buy.

Let's look at the historical P/E ratios of the Gold Bugs Index (Chart 1). You can see that the P/E ratio of today (P/E = 15) is at historical lows between 2000-2012. The forward P/E ratio of 10 is even the lowest in a decade.