Rick Rule — Gold will Soar Over the Next 10 Years

Agnico is Rule's textbook example of a disciplined gold miner that grows the smart way: it buys deposits close enough to its existing processing mills to truck the ore in, so it adds output without building expensive new plants. He points to its recent roll-up of nearby deposits in Finland. The go-to model of takeovers that actually create value rather than just bulk.

Equinox grows by buying other miners (Calibre, then Orla) mainly to get bigger — because a larger company gets pulled into stock indexes, which forces index funds to buy it automatically. Rule owns it and keeps adding. He temporarily marked it a "5" because the stock tends to drift sideways while it digests a deal (people who only owned the target for the buyout payday now sell out). But once it finishes, Equinox sells off the weaker mines, keeps the best, and crosses 1 million ounces of annual production into "major producer" territory — which triggers more index buying.

Dakota is a gold developer in South Dakota's historic Homestake mining district, and one of Rule's larger personal holdings (he grades it a "4" and notes he's friends with management, so he's talking his own book). The encouraging sign: as they drill closer-spaced holes ("infill" drilling, which confirms how much gold is really there), the results keep saying "this is a mine." It gets built either by Dakota itself or by its neighbor Coeur, which already operates a mill next door and could simply buy it.

Vizsla owns one of the best undeveloped silver deposits in the world, in Sinaloa, Mexico. The stock collapsed after a drug cartel — destabilized by the jailing of its old boss "El Chapo" Guzmán — kidnapped and apparently murdered 10 company workers. Rule owns a lot and would buy more: his philosophy is that the silver in the ground "doesn't care" about the violence on top of it and will still be there once things settle. But he's emphatic that this is a patient 2-to-3-year speculation requiring the stomach to watch grim cartel news, not a quick trade.

UEC mines uranium in the US. Rule says management (led by Amir Adnani) transformed it from a company that couldn't profitably produce anything into a potential 8-to-10-million-pound-a-year producer with a strong balance sheet and good relationships with regulators in Texas and Wyoming. His key insight: US politicians want a domestic uranium supply, so American-produced uranium should command a price premium — and UEC is "in the catbird seat" to capture it. Not cheap, but well positioned.

Rule praises G Mining for its takeover of G2 Goldfields. The remarkable part: it paid a 70% premium over G2's market price and the deal still added value per share for G Mining's existing owners — meaning the asset was so good (and the buyer's own stock so richly valued) that even overpaying made shareholders better off. He calls it "an amazing circumstance."

Orla is being absorbed by Equinox. Rule's near-term point: a chunk of Orla's owners only held it betting on a buyout, and now that the buyout is happening they're cashing out — which puts temporary downward pressure on the buyer (Equinox) stock until that selling clears.

Mayfair is a gold developer in Canada's Abitibi region that Rule is still studying (no grade yet). He likes the management team. What he likes structurally is the "fallback": even if Mayfair's roughly one million ounces aren't quite enough to justify building its own mill, decades of mining infrastructure in the Abitibi mean a neighbor with a spare mill within about 50 km could simply buy and absorb the deposit. So there's a built-in floor under the value even if the standalone plan doesn't pencil out.

Coeur operates the Wharf mine right next to Dakota Gold's project. Rule mentions it two ways: studying how Coeur reimagined the district helped Dakota make its discovery, and Coeur is a logical buyer of Dakota since it already has nearby operations. A supporting character in the Dakota story rather than a standalone pick.

NexGen owns what Rule believes is the best undeveloped uranium deposit in the world (the Arrow project in Saskatchewan, a stable, mining-friendly Canadian province), and has quietly done the hard permitting and community groundwork. His gripe — and why he grades it only a "5" — is the lavish corporate spending (sponsoring Formula 1 racing), which he says is "spending away" the value he'd otherwise capture. He notes it can now sell itself to several big buyers, not just Cameco, but building the mine would cost roughly $6 billion, so any payoff is years away.

Denison is a uranium developer Rule is still reviewing (unranked). The whole thesis hinges on one technical question: whether "in-situ recovery" — dissolving and pumping uranium out of the ground rather than digging it, which is proven in shallow deposits — can work at the greater depth Denison is attempting. He loves one thing for sure: it already owns a permitted, operating mill, which is rare and removes a major build-and-permit headache.

Rule cites Rio Tinto as a logical company to eventually buy and build NexGen's giant uranium deposit: it's already in the uranium business and already runs an $8-billion-dollar potash mine in the same province (Saskatchewan), so it has the scale and local footprint. Mentioned as a potential acquirer rather than a direct recommendation.

Uranium Royalty owns "royalties" — rights to a cut of uranium production without operating mines. Rule cut his grade from "4" to "5" because the company made a big acquisition in soda ash (an unrelated chemical), plus a lot of land, which means uranium is now less than half of what the company has its money in. The deal also added a lot of new shares, diluting existing owners. So it's drifted away from being a pure uranium bet.

Vista's main asset, Mount Todd in Australia, is a large gold deposit — but the rock is extremely hard and relatively low-grade, which makes it expensive and difficult to mine. Rule (who helped buy it decades ago) is skeptical: the team has spent years unable to line up financing to build it, and extra exploration hasn't made the deposit any bigger, so "what you see is what you get." A "weak 6" — no hidden upside to bail it out.