It's hard to imagine the public's view on precious metals back in the early 2000s, back when companies like Sun Microsystems, and InfoSpace (INSP) still dominated investor attention, oil traded at $30 a barrel and gold wasn't only unfollowed by most, but unknown altogether.

Over the course of the following decade, the entire asset class transformed. Gold (and gold stocks) soared, turning a onetime investment backwater into the market's most sought after asset. Gold has now been up for 11 years in a row.

With the strong returns came a wide proliferation of gold-following funds. Back in 2001, Central Fund of Canada (CEF) was about the only pure-play exchanged-traded means for stock investors to allocate to the yellow metal. Since then, innumerable new products have been launched, including funds like Asian Gold Trust (AGOL), which holds physical bars in Singapore and Power Shares DB Gold Double Long ETN (DGP) which offers a 2x levered bet.

What also changed was the public's level of comfort, not to mention portfolio allocation, with commodities and other alternatives. The same investors who in 1999 questioned owning anything besides Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft (MSFT) were, by 2010, allocating as much as 25% of their portfolios to gold.

The changing political landscape: more regulations, taxes, spending and demands for sacrifice (not to mention a weaker dollar) have also given people more of a fundamental reason to hold.

Physical gold satiates an emotional need just as much as a financial one, a nuance tapped by companies selling bullion who romance gold as "something you can hold in your hand."

As we've pointed out over the years, gold's benefit as a portfolio diversification has ebbed. Recently, gold has tended to rise and fall along with stocks, acting like a risk asset itself rather than a hedge to them.

As investors, we can't afford to play favorites or fall in love with any asset. Facts are facts, the reality of how market prices act always trumps how we think they should or hope they might act. Nothing is sacred.

And in the past few days, even the metal's most ardent fans noticed that gold stocks have shown considerable weakness, with a slew of influential and widely owned names nipping new yearly lows.

Take Barrick Gold (ABX), Eldorado Gold (EGO), Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI), AngloGold Ashanti (AU), and Newmont Mining (NEM), which are all at early to mid 2010 levels. IAMGOLD (IAG) trades where it did back in the summer of 2009.

As represented by the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (ETF), gold stocks appear to be among the market's weakest, with the fund trading far below its 200-day-moving average, even amid a strong Q1 for risk. More telling is that the smaller, more speculative gold stocks are doing even worse. Market Vector Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), which follows, is down by nearly 50% in just the past year.

Trading is, first and foremost observation. Look for gold stocks doing well right now and you'll find they're nearly impossible to find. Of course, companies are influenced by management and labor issues not impacting the metal itself.

The longer-term correlation however is self-evident. For most of the past three years, gold stocks led the metal higher, a relationship that began to deteriorate last fall as stocks slipped.

Now gold stocks at yearly lows, and even longtime fans of the metal should heed the objectively worrisome signs.