Most gold stocks are down around 25 to 30% since this time last...

Most gold stocks are down around 25 to 30% since this time last year. Whereas, over the last 5 years gold stocks have been up on average about 10% per annum mostly due to the increases in the price of gold and increased revenue and profits. The price of gold has only dropped about 3% over the year so gold stocks have fallen disproportionally with the price of gold.The main concerns with the miners is the cost of production due to increased fuel and labour costs and shortages. The market seems to be expecting increases in the cost of production therefore leading to reduced profits as the price of gold is not increasing at the same rate. The highs of the previous years is not expected until inflation, supply shortages and production costs are under control and the price of gold rises.The Feds are using monetary policies to peg the price of gold.With all these factors playing against gold stocks, it is likely that financial institutions and superannuation funds are selling down their holdings before the end of the financial year for tax and reporting purposes.The half yearly reports will be the key to determining where gold stocks trend over the coming months.I personally think that the market has over-reacted with the sell off of gold stocks over the last 12 months mainly caused by the central bankers over-reacting to interests rates and monetary policies. They should never have let interests rates go as low as they did during the pandemic and if interest rates were held at 1%, I doubt we would be experiencing a degree of panic in most sectors. Hopefully, inflation will be under control by the end of the year when interest rates approach 2% and inflation is around 3%. If inflation is not under control and the central bankers are forced to keep increasing interests rates then there will be a lot of pain in the real estate sector and the market with less funds being available for investment in the market as those with cash will head to relatively safe havens such as term deposits and bonds.I believe that the market is still in a correction phase as the indicies have generally fallen back to the levels of early 2020 just prior to the governments trying to control the pandemic. The DJI and the NASDAC were way too high even during Trumps era and a correction was inevitable.