If You're Looking For A Quick Turnaround In Gold, You Won't Want To See This Chart

Gold investors have endured a pretty painful sell-off since September, watching prices fall more than 12 percent since then to today's levels.

The chart below, via JPMorgan, shows the latest decline in what has become a sideways market since gold peaked in 2011.

The real bummer for those hoping for a quick turnaround, though, is seasonality.

As JPMorgan analyst John Bridges notes, "Gold rarely performs in Q2."

Below is a month-by-month breakdown of how gold performed in 2011, how it's done over the last five years, and how it's done over the last 10 years on average. (The latter measure does a good job capturing the entirety of the latest bull market in gold.)

Of course, before we even get to Q2, there's March – which the chart indicates has been one of the worst months of the year for gold over the past ten years.

This doesn't necessarily conflict with what the gold bulls are saying, though. UBS analyst Julien Garran, for example, predicts a "major gold rally" starting in Q3.