El P., imo, there are certain groups (wall street,London, Washington,DC,ETC.) that have put great fear into investors minds about gold bullion price volitility . All you have to do is look at the contrived unexpected drop in the gold price several times in recent months by $100 or more in a day. This fear has been taken advantage of by the manipulators who have/are shorting the heck out of most gold equities for their own gain . It has got to a point where investors appear to fear having anything to do with gold equities, regardless of rising, strong fundamentals. The gold sector is relatively small and trading it can easily be controlled by these traders. The sector remains in their strong grips ,but hopefuuly that will change in time.

Just look at the link below which shows the largest short position as at April 15/12 for TSX companies and you will see how many gold stocks are in a short position.

NGD,OSK,UBR,K,BTO,YRI,GSC,RGX,ELD,TOM are all on the list. Remember,this list is of the largest positions only and not of all shorts.

http://www.financialpost.com/markets/data/market-short_pos.html