The past few weeks have been bullish for gold, in its bullion form and as an embed in mining stock prices. We've touched on the differential volatility of bullion and mining stocks before, most recently in "Appraising Gold Miners' Equity Risk." In that piece, we compared the performance and volatility of the Market Vector Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) and its components to bullion proxied by the SPDR Gold Shares Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD).

Real-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -2.5%

Gold gained ground against three reserve currencies this week, but retreated against two others. Aside from its appreciation against the U.S. dollar, bullion rose 2.6 percent vs. the euro and 2.0 percent in sterling terms. Gold lost 0.2 percent in yen and 0.4 percent against the Swiss franc.

A lot of people are excited by silver's breakout activity over the past two trading sessions. Rightfully so, too. Prices did bust through a critical resistance area left over from the metal's early-summer decline when spot was trimmed by $2.65 an ounce over three weeks.

Gold won a middling round against the U.S. dollar this week, scoring points on all the reserve currencies. Bullion hit the euro hardest, rising 3.2 percent against the common currency. Sterling took it on the chin by 3.1 percent, while the Japanese yen gave up 2.6 percent. The Swiss franc lost 1.0 percent.

Real-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -1.3%

Gold continued to rally against Continental currencies this week, but lost 0.3 percent against the Japanese yen. Bullion rose 2.0 percent in euros, 1.7 percent in sterling and 1.3 percent in Swiss francs.  

Last month in "Appraising Gold Miners' Equity Risk," we peeled into the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) components and discovered a connection between the miners' performance and that of the general market. More properly, it's a disconnect that makes for good numbers: The lower a gold miner's correlation to the stock market, the better its performance.

With so many ETF filings and launches over the past several months, we take a second look at some overlooked gems.