Nomi Prins — Member-Only Exclusive Report - Aya Gold & Silver
A boots-on-the-ground site report from Aya's Zgounder silver mine in Morocco — and the day its shares began trading on the Nasdaq.
One-line take: a member-only on-site report on Aya Gold & Silver (AYA) — a high-conviction Pulse Premium model-portfolio holding since July 2024. Prins visited the flagship Zgounder silver mine (Anti-Atlas Mountains, Morocco) April 13-14: it's running ~40% above design capacity (3,800-4,100 tpd vs 2,700 designed), with >91% recoveries, a December 2025 resource update lifting M&I to 100M oz silver (165 g/t), 2026 guidance of 6.2-6.8M oz AgEq at ~$21.50/oz cash cost, $136M unrestricted cash, mostly solar/wind grid power (~15% power savings), and deep local employment (~90% Moroccan). Catalysts: the Nasdaq listing (executed May 4, 2026), the Boumadine technical-report update (H2 2026), and continued resource extension. The position remains active. (Paid issue; summarized here from the article text.)
1. Stocks & names mentioned
The single rated name is Aya Gold & Silver (AYA), an active model-portfolio holding. Silver appears as commodity context. "View" reflects how each was framed in the piece. The "At" link opens the article. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What she said | At |
|---|
| AYA | Aya Gold & Silver | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | An active high-conviction holding since July 2024 — its Zgounder mine runs ~40% above design capacity with >91% recoveries and a growing orebody (100M oz M&I silver); 2026 guidance 6.2-6.8M oz AgEq at ~$21.50/oz; just listed on Nasdaq (May 4) for institutional visibility. The site visit "only deepened our conviction." | read |
| Silver | Silver (physical scarcity) | — | Positive | The backdrop — the difficulty of pulling silver out of remote, high-altitude ground (capital, labor, roads, power, time) is what scarcity looks like in practice; paper trading "does not produce one more ounce." | read |
"View" reflects how each name was framed (AYA Positive = an active conviction holding; silver Positive = the scarcity backdrop), not a fresh price rating. Built from the Pulse Premium issue. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
2. Key points
Why go to the mine
- Prins visited Zgounder April 13-14, 2026 — underground tunnels, the open pit, the processing plant, two live blasts, and the on-site refinery vault (100-120kg bars at 97% purity). There's a limit to what filings tell you; she wanted to see who runs the mine, how, and how the Morocco team connects to Canada HQ.
Operations running well above design
- The plant was designed for 2,700 tpd; by end-2025 it ran 3,800 tpd consistently and crossed 4,100 tpd in December, with silver recovery above 91%. A new H2-2025 grade-control system (blast-movement tracking, bench-by-bench modeling, weekly drone surveys) drove the throughput gains.
The resource keeps growing
- The December 2025 NI 43-101 update lifted M&I to 100M oz silver at 165 g/t, with 73M oz proven & probable reserves. 2025 drilling reached 28,281m (vs a 25,000m plan); intercepts above 6,000 g/t; mineralization extends west and deeper. 2026 budget ~$30M at Zgounder (part of ~$60M company-wide incl. Boumadine), targeting 30,000m.
Costs, power and logistics
- 2026 guidance: 6.2-6.8M oz AgEq (5.2-5.8M from Zgounder + ~1M from Boumadine pyrite reclaim) at ~$21.50/oz cash cost. Power is mostly solar/wind off the Moroccan grid (diesel backup), ~15% savings vs self-generation. Three tons of 97% doré ship weekly in a single armored truck (unpredictable schedule) to EU refineries for finishing to 99.99%. Expansion funded by a $100M senior loan ($92M EBRD + $8M Climate Investment Funds) + equity; ended 2025 with $136M cash.
Community integration
- ~70-80% of site workers are local (>90% Moroccan); ~1,200 work at Zgounder. Aya backs a saffron program, a women's cooperative bakery, and women's literacy classes. The EBRD signed off in January 2026 that the operation meets its environmental and financial commitments.
Upcoming catalysts
- Nasdaq listing (targeted Q2, executed May 4, 2026) — moving off OTCQX (AYASF) to put it in front of U.S. institutions and re-rate the stock. Boumadine technical-report update (H2 2026; 200,000m drilling, feasibility 2027). Continued resource extension funded by the ~$30M Zgounder budget. The position remains active; the visit deepened conviction.
3. In plain English
A jargon-free summary of why each name is in the piece. (Plain-language companion to the table above; renders on each ticker's consolidated page.)
AYA — Aya Gold & Silver Positive
Aya is a silver miner that Prins has recommended since July 2024 and still holds. She flew to Morocco and went a mile underground to see its main mine, Zgounder, in person — because, she says, you can only really judge a mining company by standing in it. What she found impressed her: the plant is processing about 40% more ore than it was designed for, recovering more than 91% of the silver, and the deposit keeps getting bigger as they drill.
The mine also runs on cheap, mostly solar/wind grid power, employs mainly local people (which keeps the community on its side for the long haul), and has plenty of cash. The big near-term event is that Aya just moved its stock onto the Nasdaq, which lets large U.S. investors buy it for the first time and could push the share price up. Prins says the visit only strengthened her conviction in the position.
Silver — Silver (physical scarcity) Positive
The whole report doubles as a lesson in why silver is genuinely scarce: getting it out of remote mountain rock takes roads, power, skilled people, capital and years of work — none of which a trader's screen price reflects. Prins's takeaway is that the real silver market is much tighter than the paper price suggests, which is exactly why she likes owning a low-cost producer like Aya rather than just the metal on a chart.
Summary derived from the Prinsights Pulse Premium Substack issue for personal study. Not investment advice. © Nomi Prins / Prinsights for source material.