Several commentators on this and other forums have been advising to avoid producers and/or GDXJ stocks. Regarding producers I agree you better NOT own the stock going into production as there are ALWAYS issues.

 

As an example, Eldorado gold announced they will have to lower production at one of its new mines in Turkey. This  is however a diversified producer with multiple mines so the impact is less on the overall production. On the chart we can see a divergence so maybe it is time to buy again.

 

 

On the other hand, when you invest in a single mine asset risk is far bigger. Red eagle just announced they will temporary stop mining and do some minor adjustments. Nothing material, but the market did not liked that, back to square one on the chart. Of course this is a very nice asset, with capable management, with exposure to exploration assets. So obviously now the bad news is out it is time to consider buying, not selling as retail investors are doing.

 

 

 

This brings me to my point of valuation, several GDXJ producers like TGZ, AR, SMF have been beaten down hard due some fundamental issue and/or market related selling. As a contrarian investor, I believe this is the time to look at these names again.

 

Some will prefer explorers, I agree this can be a better strategy, but you need to diversify into several names and I believe there is a lot of value right now in GDXJ stocks, explorers still have to prove the economics of their deposits and they have to go to the market for new funds every 3/6/9 months.  For a solid producer this is not the issue and day or weekly share price fluctuations are less important as a consequence. I therefore believe that having some mid cap producers in its portfolio can be a good strategy.