Thursday was a sea of red across the board, as long trades were being unwound in every sector, resources not excepted. Our benchmark Mining Almanac Index of larger producers was down 6% for the day, compared to 5% for major indices like the Dow and S&P500. Sub-sector losses ranged from 4% in rare earths and zinc to 10% in heavy metals stocks. Gold producers declined 5%, which was a decent performance, all things considered.

On days like this, it’s interesting to check the movers page to see which stocks bucked the trend and managed to actually go up a lot. Here’s the top of that list:

Despite their general positive correlation with broad indices, the mining sector has held up very well despite a dismal couple of weeks for stocks in general. Gold approaching $1700 might have something to do with it, but even such industrial mineral sectors like base metals, rare earths and uranium have been stronger than the Dow, DAX and FTSE.dex, vs. the S&P500 over the last month.

GDX, the gold miners’ ETF, is up 7%, while the S&P is down 6%, a 13% outperformance for the miners:

Even downtrodden uranium stocks have caught a bid this summer:

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SITE TIP: Peruse & compare our mineral sub-sector indices here, and see which have been the strongest.

Gold has marched steadily upwards for the last 12 months, but mining stock investors have had a more interesting ride, thrilling at first, but lately frustrating. Juniors all did spectacularly well during the summer and fall of 2010, but this year the stocks have consolidated their gains or drifted lower as gold has continued higher.

However, as gold approached the 1600 mark, miners and juniors alike have finally gotten a lift. Here is a chart of the gold price (blue), gold explorers (pink) and gold producers (green) for 2011:

It is too early to call a breakout of the downward trend, but I’ll be watching for one in the coming days. It is encouraging that the miners have continued this three week uptrend over the last few trading sessions as the broader equity indices have softened. Perhaps we are setting up for another great run once the summer doldrums are over.

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Site tip: You can compare any company to any of our indices or the gold price on the company’s charts page. Try it out with Newmont. Just select the indices you want to add to the chart from the list on the right.

Bargain hunters should be thrilled, since there are some real values appearing in the market again. Many small stocks have retraced their entire 2010 rally, even as gold hovers over $1500 and silver holds $35. With the dollar still in the doldrums, commodity prices levitating, and interest rates near zero, something has to give.

A bit of fear has crept into the markets as a whole since May, but resource equities have been hit particularly hard, and the losses have been magnified for juniors and explorers.

Our gold explorers index, for instance, is down over 20% in 2011:

Site Tip: The best place to see which companies have become cheap is the Editor’s Picks section.
The lists refresh daily, taking into account the latest stock and metal prices.

Phew! We’ve been working ’round the clock to get this website out of beta, and have just today assembled version 1.0 of the full site. You can finally play with our maps and fascinating niche mining indices, and explore our lists of stocks grouped by mineral and category. See the Picks tab for pre-filtered stocks that pass a battery of financial strength and value tests. We’re also running a “map of the month” on the front page, and of course every company’s properties are mapped on their respective pages.

Plus, we just topped 1700 stocks, which pretty much exhausts the US, Canadian, UK and Australian listings.

Enjoy!