I ran a 10 year chart comparison of S&P vs NEM. Interesting. Looks like a dragon with its mouth wide open. :-) the question is timing and whether gold falls more before recovering. Anyone that invested a lot in gold in early 2011 got hosed pretty badly and took about a 60% hit. So one has to be cautious.
In the last 26 years, it (NEM) has only gone lower a few times, and not by that much. Even during the “end of the world times” of the 2008 meltdown, it only fell to $26 or so. I believe most of the risk has been wrung out of it.
I would put this up against Facebook, Twitter, Google or Apple for the next 3 to 5 years. Looking at a finite timespan, timing for this one will be an issue, but in terms of risk/reward, it is one of the only good plays in this market IMO.