By Bill Gunderson
MarketWatch
There is turmoil in the world right now with a number of “hot spots” that have a potential to heat up further. With geopolitical risks mounting, it is no wonder that many precious-metal stocks, and in particular gold stocks, have started to move up.
Gold stocks in general have underperformed the market the last few years. Looking at the historical performance of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF GLD +1.50% as a proxy for gold stocks, it has significantly underperformed the S&P 500 Index on a three- and five-year basis. Last year, while the U.S. stock markets were on a tear, gold stocks declined more than 28%.