By Jeff Clark, Casey Research
I've read articles from more than one analyst claiming that gold stocks are down on low volume, implying there's a lack of interest in precious metals. While on the surface that seems like an obvious statement, their point is that most of the recent volume has been coming from sellers and thus exaggerating the recent decline.
I decided to test this hypothesis, because if correct, it has investment implications, starting with the fact that at some point you run out of sellers; and if and when buyers return, the ensuing rise could be spectacular.
I also wanted to compare volume now to the waterfall decline in 2008. If volume is starting to spike now like it did then, it might give us some additional clues about our current environment and what to expect going forward.
So let's take a look. The following chart shows the average weekly volume of the 10 largest gold producers that trade in North America, along with the daily price movements of GDX, the Gold Miners Index.

(Click on image to enlarge)
While the number of shares trading hands every day fluctuates a great deal, the first thing that jumps out is that the current correction in gold is indeed occurring on relatively low volume.
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