While I respect Plunger’s opinion in his well presented post, I disagree with the assessment that gold stocks are in a bear market. More importantly, it isn’t really what matters and I believe misses the more important point. Gold and Silver are arguably still in bull markets and are only in a correction until more evidence confirms that the past eleven months represents the first leg down in a new bear market or was just a typical correction, given the huge run-up from March to August of 2020. I don’t really care what you want to call what happens to most mining stocks. I don’t follow or invest in ETF’s or large groups of stocks that end up producing average returns. Someone who doesn’t want to spend the time or do the work and just wants an indexed portfolio can go that route. Most of us here, have at least some level of experience, and expertise, especially in technical analysis. If you combine that with some fundamental research, you should be able to identify a few candidates that will give you outperformance while still experiencing the benefits of diversification. I suggest that before one calls the gold miners in either a bull or bear market, focus on two particular stocks. RGLD is the premier royalty stock and has called the moves in gold  and gold miners for years. NEM is the largest, best managed and best performing, large cap gold miner. While RGLD led the way down in this correction it has been outperforming and signaled the bottom is in. It will need to take out it’s high to confirm what NEM has already signalled. (New highs for gold and the best mining stocks.) Everyone has their favorite juniors and rocks and can make money as long as gold is in a bull(and it still is until otherwise proven) You have to do your homework both technically and fundamentally. Don’t get caught up in arguments about bull  or bear markets.  It is good to identify them when you can, but finding places to invest your capital where it is growing, is “what matters”!