As a group, gold funds fell by 10.27 percent.

In the second quarter, the gold fund dropped by 23.55 percent.

If we think gold, say, will go up in price, we'll buy a gold fund.

For all of last year, gold funds averaged a return of 35.66 percent.

As a result, gold funds show a negative return of 17.86 percent so far this year, according to Lipper.

Clearly, the recent returns on gold funds are not linked to the metal's price.

Managers of gold funds acknowledge that performance has not been stellar.

The biggest losers were the gold funds, down 25.2 percent.

And since January, the average gold mutual fund is down 28 percent.

At the start of the year, gold funds had $7.9 billion in total assets.