Candlevolume chart of the GLD (Inception date: 11/18/2004) ... the width of the year shows you how active trading was ... 2014 shaping up to be a "thin" year as price falls and activity drops. 2012 thin, 2013 thinner, 2014 thinnest. You can see that in the early years of the boom, 2004 05 06 07, there was very little trading in the GLD. Everyone who purchased after May 2010 and held is underwater. A lot of latecomers are bagholders now, that's for sure.