Great insightful comments – thanks Randy. FWIW out this morning… “APPLE’S IPHONE SALES IN CHINA DROP 28% TO 5.1 MLN UNITS IN Q3, LOWEST IN 5 YEARS”

I try not to read too much into the day to day disconnects between the performance of gold & GDX, instead focusing on potential trading opportunities when one has significantly outperformed or underperformed the other relative to their usual price/performance differentials (e.g.- I’ll watch the GLD:GDX ratio for extremes. Longer-term, GDX will follow gold, period, with periods of brief disconnects from time to time.
As far as today, the bounce in GDX appears technically based as GDX bounce off the top of the 60-minute bullish falling wedge that I had just recently highlighted it breaking out above. (below)

Sounds quite logical & likely. Just as it was leading up to the market top in Oct 2007 when the previous bull market ended, we’re seeing the same dynamic where fewer & fewer mega-cap, beloved tech stocks (largely the FAAMGs) are doing most of the heavy lifting.
The S&P 500 is comprised of 11 sectors although the tech sector, accounts for the bulk of the gains as it has the highest weighting in the index by a wide margin. Here’s a breakout of when each of those 11 sectors topped (all-time highs) as the S&P 500 is trading at an all-time high (a la technology stocks):
XLV (healthcare): Oct 2018
XLRE (REITs/real-estate): Oct 22, 2019 (near ATH’s now but an insignificant, defensive sector at only a ~3% weighting)
XLF (financials): Jan 2018
XLI (industrials): Jan 2018
XLE (energy): June 2014 (over 5 years ago)
XLY (consumer discretionary): July 2019
XLK (technology- aka “the stock market”): currently at ATH’s
XLB (basic materials): Jan 2018
XLU (utilities): Sept 2019 (the only other insignificant index beside REITs at a tiny ~3% weighting, also a defensive sector)
XLP (consumer staples): Sept 2019 (also a defensive sector)
XLC (communications): Jan 2018
That pretty much points to a top in Jan 2018 if you were to strip away the top-heavy weighting of the tech sector. It doesn’t bode well that industrials, financials, energy, basic materials & communication all topped back in Jan 2018 or earlier but hey, the market continues to party like it’s 1999 (and we all know what happened once the party ended)