Unfortunately it hasn't been a good week for the investors of Australia's leading gold producers. Following a steep decline at the start of the week, the spot gold price continued to sink lower in overnight trading.
Strong economic data out of the United States this week has bolstered the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates before the end of the year.
This caused the spot gold price to drop to a four-month low of US$1,250 an ounce. Although it has since recovered slightly to US$1,258 an ounce, it is still almost US$100 an ounce lower than where it was just a month ago.
As you might expect the shares of Australian gold producers have dropped today in response to these declines. At the time of writing the S&P/ASX All Ords Gold (Index: ^AXGD) (ASX: XGD) is lower by almost 3%, with the following shares contributing strongly to these declines.
| Company | Share Price | Market Cap | Change |
| Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX: NCM) | $20.33 | $15.5Bn | -2.9% |
| Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) | $3.86 | $2.3Bn | -1.1% |
| Regis Resources Limited (ASX: RRL) | $3.34 | $1.7Bn | -3.3% |
| Resolute Mining Limited (ASX: RSG) | $1.64 | $1.2Bn | -4.6% |
| Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited (ASX: SAR) | $1.18 | $950M | -2.9% |
| St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM) | $2.71 | $1.3Bn | -2.2% |
| Troy Resources Ltd (ASX: TRY) | 36 cents | $163M | -2.7% |
Unfortunately I expect the gold price could come under more pressure over the next couple of months as the Fed meetings draw closer.
This could potential drag the gold price and the miners down even lower. For this reason I feel that now might be a great time to take profits and look elsewhere in the market.
