A battle is brewing in the gold pits. Here are the winners and losers

Has gold lost its luster? Traders on both sides of the question are duking it out in the options pit of one ETF that’s trying to buck the multi-month downtrend in the commodity. Options volumes leaned bullish in both the SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) and VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) on Tuesday as GDX posted a more than 4% rally despite gold futures dropping on the session. Bullish flows were particularly strong in GDX, with call volumes outpacing puts more than 5 to 1 at one point of the trading day. In GDX, more than 10,000 calls traded at the ask or above, meaning they were likely bought, compared to 4,400 puts bought, ...