Hi Ho! Silver to the Moon?
A full transcript of the Private Briefing with Rick Rule on silver and the 50 stocks making up the entire sector
Thursday, May 8th, 2025
Laramie, Wyoming
Dear Reader,
After my interview with Rick Rule on Monday, I ran an AI screen of all the North American-listed mining companies that can be classified as silver-mining stocks. I also asked the Agent to include any companies whose operations were primarily in North, Central, or South America. That gave me a list of 52 companies with a combined market capitalization of $252 billion.
But here’s the thing. Ranked by market cap, the top three companies on the list were Freeport McMoran [FCX], Southern Copper Corporation [SCCO], and Newmont Corporation [NEM]. Those three companies have a combined market cap of $153 billion. And the silver they mine is a by-product of gold and copper mining (an important point Rick made in our discussion). The other two companies in the top five—Wheaton Precious Metals [WPM] and Royal Gold [RGLD]—are streaming companies with a combined market cap of around $50 billion (streaming companies have exposure to higher metals prices without the operational risk).
That means 60% of the market cap of the ‘silver’ sector is concentrated in stocks that are not primarily silver miners. Strip those five companies out and you’re left with 47 companies with a combined market cap of around $53 billion. The largest market cap of the remaining 47 is $10 billion and the smallest is $20 million. My point?
In past precious metals bull markets, getting retail investment liquidity into a small number of publicly listed stocks is like, ‘getting the Hoover Dam into a garden hose.’ That was Rick paraphrasing our mutual friend Doug Casey. It explains why long-suffering silver equity investors are willing to suffer so much, for so long.
If you enjoy the interview below, you can sign up for Rick’s Natural Resource Investing Symposium here. Rick mentioned that this year’s conference is focused on silver. Not because it’s popular. But because it’s hated. That’s what makes the opportunity so compelling right now.
Until tomorrow,
Dan
P.S. The universe of investable silver stocks is so small that one strategy—if you have money to play with/lose—is to allocate a lump sum to the whole sector and buy all 50 or so stocks. No research. No drill results. No paying attention to political risk or earnings or management. Just a pure bet that silver stocks will 10x if and when retail liquidity starts chasing metals prices higher in a precious metals bull market. Of course the far more prudent thing to do is see which companies Rick has vetted and has invited to his show in July, and then listen to their presentations, review their projects, speak to their management in person, do your own research, and then make a decision.