It certainly hasn't been a great start to the day for Australia's leading gold miners.
In morning trade the S&P/ASX All Ords Gold (Index: ^AXGD) (ASX: XGD) is down by around 1.5%.
What happened?
The spot gold price has fallen almost 1.5% from yesterday's high and is currently fetching approximately US$1.241 an ounce.
According to Bloomberg, the catalyst for the decline was a large sale during London trade. Volume spiked to 18,149 lots in just a single minute's trade overnight, causing concern for commodity traders.
Ordinarily you might expect to see between 2,000 to 2,500 lots traded per hour.
Whilst many have speculated that it was an accidental "fat finger" order, it hasn't stopped other traders from panic-selling.
Which in turn has led to a good number of Australian gold miners sinking lower today.
Some notable declines include the St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM) share price, the OceanaGold Corporation (ASX: OGC) share price, the Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited (ASX: SAR) share price, and the Independence Group NL (ASX: IGO) share price.
These miners are all down by around 3% in morning trade.
Should you buy the dip?
If you are bullish on the gold price then now could be a great time to invest in the gold miners. But if you are like me and fear that rising interest rates in the United States will cause the gold price to slump, then I would continue to focus on other areas of the market.
