AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU ), the large South African miner, has been running harder and faster to keep up with the price of gold itself, and is having a hard time doing so. It is the 3rd largest gold miner in the world with twenty mines in ten countries. The company doubled its dividend payout in the 4th quarter to $0.23/share (yield of 3.1%) but the stock is down 26% this year and has underperformed gold bullion for the last two years. Why is that? The chart below shows AngloGold Ashanti, Newmont Mining ( NEM )-- another large miner-- vs. the value of GLD, an ETF that only holds bullion and has no operating costs. You can see that both AU and NEM failed to keep up in price with GLD in the recent strong gold bullion market of the last five years. This was not the case in prior years. This is probably due to the miners retaining a large portion of the cash flow for future investments. Also, the market is apparently discounting the value of an oz of gold in the ground.