The gold miners’ stocks have powered higher in recent months, solidifying a strong young upleg. But the extended-correction low leading into this latest rally has left sector psychology fairly bearish. Traders are skeptical about gold stocks’ upside potential, wary of another serious selloff. The gold miners’ just-reported Q1’21 operating and financial results reveal whether their fundamentals support further big gains.

The first quarter of 2021 was rough for the gold stocks. Their leading and dominant benchmark and trading vehicle remains the GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF. Its $15.3b in net assets in the middle of this week ran 31x bigger than its next-largest 1x-long major-gold-miners-ETF competitor. During Q1, GDX dropped a sizable 9.8%. The gold stocks were increasingly out of favor as gold itself also lost 10.0%.