Buy gold or gold miners? You don’t have to dig deep to hit paydirt.

Gold bullion — physical gold GC00 — has outperformed gold-mining company shares over the past three years by one of the largest margins in decades. Gold recently hit a new all-time high above $2,200 an ounce, while the PHLX Gold/Silver Index XAU is below where it stood three years ago — as you can see in the chart below.

This is good news for gold-mining shares, since historically they have performed well following periods in which they have significantly lagged bullion.