After more than a decade, the blog has found a solid audience.
General Layout
The home page hosts titles and introductory paragraphs of the latest 10 articles; the right column contains a blog archive with posts summarized by year and month. Clicking a year provides you with a list of all articles for that year and the introduction or abstract.
Down the right column there are a list of blogs and links which I sometimes refer to, the featured post and the preferred reads of the month.
Note that the right column doesn't show on mobile devices.
Down the right column there are a list of blogs and links which I sometimes refer to, the featured post and the preferred reads of the month.
Note that the right column doesn't show on mobile devices.
Blog title change
The focus of the blog gradually shifted towards precious metals mining; especially after real estate investment vehicles got their own separate blog spot. Accordingly, the blog name was changed to 'Mining corner', without changing its URL. Hence, all external links will remain valid. The clear focus also may facilitate including any interested co-writer.
My maths and physics background filters through in the often quantitative and statistical analysis I make. (Take it or leave it).
As I don't manage nor advise any institutional investment fund or vehicle, I don't pump any stocks I own nor do I bash any stocks I'd wish to buy. Moreover the illusion that this blog might influence gold stock prices is exaggerated if not insane. Any point of view I make results from personal study and conviction. I don't share in any profits investors may draw from it, nor do I assume responsibility for any loss, following the depicted investment perspectives may cause.
The Authors
Gwyde is not an investment professional.My maths and physics background filters through in the often quantitative and statistical analysis I make. (Take it or leave it).
As I don't manage nor advise any institutional investment fund or vehicle, I don't pump any stocks I own nor do I bash any stocks I'd wish to buy. Moreover the illusion that this blog might influence gold stock prices is exaggerated if not insane. Any point of view I make results from personal study and conviction. I don't share in any profits investors may draw from it, nor do I assume responsibility for any loss, following the depicted investment perspectives may cause.
I'm not trying to earn petty cash adding commercial links on this blog site. Any links refer to or support the argument made in the context.
Unlike many other colleague bloggers on this subject, I never was extremely vocal on 'where the gold or silver price should go to'; nor am I proclaiming at what price gold should quote, given the flawed US Fed policy measures and worldwide negative or (near) zero-interest rates, which have prevailed far too long.
Being prudent costed some audience, but it kept the blog adaptive to changing market trends and more importantly: alive.
Unlike many other colleague bloggers on this subject, I never was extremely vocal on 'where the gold or silver price should go to'; nor am I proclaiming at what price gold should quote, given the flawed US Fed policy measures and worldwide negative or (near) zero-interest rates, which have prevailed far too long.
Being prudent costed some audience, but it kept the blog adaptive to changing market trends and more importantly: alive.
Blog Pages
The blog pages (can be clicked on the address bar below the blog header), have drawn major reader interest: by now, the ‘gold miner pulse’ page would rank on top of all blog articles with about 5% of the number of page views; the Miners' Performance page has also grown more popular over the years. Most pages are regularly refreshed .
Note: after the cyber attack on the Kitco site, graphs links are no longer available. The graphs page was withdrawn. I will keep monitoring the situation to check data availability going forward.
The graphs page displays a series of 24 h graphs of the precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) both in USD/Oz and in EUR/Kg. Next follow a number of graphs on copper (USD/lb). Finally exchange rates (USD-centric) also are included. Graphs only are updated as you first open the page or if you refresh. All graph data are retrieved from Kitco.
Few pages are not included on the title bar but rather are referenced elsewhere. They include the separate 'chapters' of the directory of posts, but also a few others. For the curious readers, here's an overview of the latter:
Despite one or a few new articles added every month, older posts are still read quite often. Several of these could be considered ‘reference articles’, remaining valuable long after posting. Some other articles refer to a situation or circumstances valid at the time of writing and may not be a good read any longer. A few blog articles contain reference graphs, some of which have been updated (long) after drafting the original.
Note: after the cyber attack on the Kitco site, graphs links are no longer available. The graphs page was withdrawn. I will keep monitoring the situation to check data availability going forward.
The graphs page displays a series of 24 h graphs of the precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) both in USD/Oz and in EUR/Kg. Next follow a number of graphs on copper (USD/lb). Finally exchange rates (USD-centric) also are included. Graphs only are updated as you first open the page or if you refresh. All graph data are retrieved from Kitco.
Few pages are not included on the title bar but rather are referenced elsewhere. They include the separate 'chapters' of the directory of posts, but also a few others. For the curious readers, here's an overview of the latter:
- Long-term performance of large-cap precious metal miners
- Back to the epic days of the 20th century (Article on gold price volatility)
- Gold Miner Pulse (extended article)
- "Fiat zilver munten onder de goudstandaard" en "Fiat zilver munten na de goudstandaard." (in Dutch
What are you interested in?
At the bottom of the main column, you find the top ranking blog articles of the year (last 12 months) while the preferred reads of the month are in the right column.Despite one or a few new articles added every month, older posts are still read quite often. Several of these could be considered ‘reference articles’, remaining valuable long after posting. Some other articles refer to a situation or circumstances valid at the time of writing and may not be a good read any longer. A few blog articles contain reference graphs, some of which have been updated (long) after drafting the original.
How did you come across this blog?
Every now and then, new readers find this blog through a well targeted google search. Formulating the same phrase as any of the blog titles may help...
Apart from this, several specific forums may refer to this blog. The author actively posts on some of them, notably in
- the 'trader section' of the TF-Metals forum (I started some threads, which is a good lead)
- the 'Mining discussion group' of the Kitco forum (Occasional posts, also elsewhere on Kitco)
- the 'Freegold forum' (both in the English and Dutch sections, esp. the Mining thread)
- Fwiw: Before it's News is following this blog (though graphics often are of poor quality).
- this blog is followed by Feedspot Mining Blogs and FeedSpot Goldblogs
Language used
This blog started off bilingual English/Dutch and has remained that way for three years. While very few articles in English are translated into Dutch, most of the (occasional) Google translation operations seem to be English to different other languages.
Many early articles in Dutch refer to quoted Belgian Real Estate investments and as such don’t draw international interest. I've suspended covering that subject on this blog and created a new blog (entirely in Dutch), linked to on the top tab "Beursgenoteerd vastgoed".
Where are you?
Google enables a geographical breakdown of the page views. Close to 20% of page views are domestic (Belgian). With over 80% foreign readers, the blog is quite international. US page views still come first with 22% with British running up to 20%. The readers top-10 is completed by page views from Russia, Canada, Germany, France, the Ukraine, the Netherlands and Italy, totaling about 20% of page views among them. Readers from other countries account for nearly 18% of views.
Reader numbers
Whereas the number of page views has long been fairly stable, sudden surges occur, occasionally doubling the monthly audience. While crawling computer bots add their grain of salt to page view numbers, surges usually come and go with fragments and links posted on social media.
Sometimes a page view surge clearly connects with the international news scene. Even though the approach on this blog generally is rather academic and mathematical, the general subjects treated do appeal when uncertainty and fear are spreading. The perspective of a disorderly BREXIT boosted the number of UK page views. Monthly geographical breakdowns have been consistently led by the UK throughout 2018-19. The 100,000 page view threshold was reached on Oct 21, 2014 and 250,000 views were reached on May 12, 2019. We reached 400,000 views on 22 Nov 2023. Those keen on blog reader statistics can find a graph of monthly page views till Sep 2019 here.
Sometimes a page view surge clearly connects with the international news scene. Even though the approach on this blog generally is rather academic and mathematical, the general subjects treated do appeal when uncertainty and fear are spreading. The perspective of a disorderly BREXIT boosted the number of UK page views. Monthly geographical breakdowns have been consistently led by the UK throughout 2018-19. The 100,000 page view threshold was reached on Oct 21, 2014 and 250,000 views were reached on May 12, 2019. We reached 400,000 views on 22 Nov 2023. Those keen on blog reader statistics can find a graph of monthly page views till Sep 2019 here.
Browsers, search engines and other techno stuff
Google enables a breakdown of the page views by browser and by operating system. The market share of former monopolist Microsoft Internet Explorer has been declining rapidly with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox filling the void. With more readers from the UK and India, this trend now seems to halt or even reverse. Safari (Apple), Opera and browsers for mobile systems remain a minority.Though Google has rapidly eclipsed all competitors (Yahoo, Bing) as the most used search engine, lately ever more articles are retrieved using 'duckduckgo'. This search engine provides better matches to the keywords provided: they are not determined by any of your prior searches since duckduckgo doesn't keep track of its users. Neither are search results reshuffled according to what's politically and/or socially desirable or to who pays for being quoted above. Mind that Duckduckgo is highly language sensitive. You won't find any posts unless you set English through choosing an English-speaking country (with Australia topping that list).
Operating systems
MS Windows based operating systems count for 73% of the page views. Apple's Macintosh is second with 11% followed by Linux (6%) and Unix (1%). Mobile operating systems have an aggregate share of 6% of the page views, with Android now leading this mobile category. Rising popularity of mobile devices is more obvious when comparing these aggregate data to monthly breakdowns, where mobile operating systems sometimes add up to 15% of total page views. Lately a wave of page views from Singapore has been mainly using mobile devices.
Secure access
This entire blog is written using the secure internet link "https://". This secure network can be used for all information access on this blog site. Nevertheless users may still obtain access using non-secure general http:// addresses. Especially when linked to from other platforms, these are the links you may find.
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