Gold Has Started 2025 With An Impressive Move And Is Bringing Some Stocks With It
Featured companies in this report are Agnico Eagle, Alamos Gold, Equinox Gold, Goliath Resources, Heliostar Metals, i-80 Gold, Orla Mining, Power Nickel, Ramp Metals and Vizsla Silver.
A couple wonderful trends are developing early in 2025, one is the powerful start to the year for gold which had an exceptional year in 2024. The other is that there are several gold stocks breaking out in a remarkable way.
The strong year for gold in 2024 didn’t really get started until around the middle of February, then it went on to make a series of record highs. This year gold has started the year with a tremendous move and has already started making another series of record highs.
Last year, while gold was in a bull market, it really only benefited the big gold miners, especially those that are top of class with their metrics. It really didn’t work its way down the food chain and could be considered a stealth bull market for gold that only helped a smallish group of gold miners.
When discussing the trend with friends, I told them it was more like a cup is half empty kind of sentiment for the gold stocks. Well that has changed in 2025, as I am seeing major gold miners, mid-tiers, developers with high-quality projects and explorers with important discoveries having significant breakouts. We are starting to see the sentiment switch to a cup is half full kind of scenario.
Last year, good to great news was welcomed with a yawn for the companies down the food chain. And used as a liquidity event because after a bear market that lasted for a few years, few believed that the gold bull market was real.
In 2025, good to great news is receiving a much warmer welcome, which is a refreshing change. The gold stock bulls are getting some pep in their step.
I’m pleased to report that several companies that have been featured in my reports are participating nicely with strong breakouts. Next I will go over a list of ten that range from the majors down to explorers. They are presented in alphabetical order.
Breakout Stocks
Agnico Eagle
The cream of the crop when it comes to major gold miners ended 2024 at C$111.80 and closed on Friday at C$135.79. They were one of the stars in 2024, seeing their stock significantly outperform gold. Driving their performance was a series of record quarters for production and free cash flow. They are firing on all cylinders and well prepared for another stellar year in 2025. With their strong free cash flow performance and strength in their balance sheet, I can imagine that they are looking for M&A candidates.
Alamos Gold
Alamos Gold is also an exceptionally good miner, although smaller than Agnico Eagle, they also significantly outperformed gold in 2024. They ended 2024 at C$25.94 and closed on Friday at C$31.58. If gold performs as I expect it will in 2025, I can see Alamos Gold either being a takeover target or possibly preventing it with a takeover of their own. In fact, I think they are a perfect candidate for Agnico Eagle to take a run at because they have similar corporate cultures and are both exceptional gold miners. They look to be at the point of being a hunter or the hunted.
Equinox Gold
They spent most of 2024 in a sideways trend as they were bringing their Greenstone Mine into production. They ended 2024 at C$7.15 and closed on Friday at C$9.58. Just as they were turning on the Greenstone Mine, their 40% partner, Orion Mine Finance, decided they wanted to sell their interest as they aren’t a mining company. It cost them over C$1 billion, which they had to take on debt to make it happen, but now they own 100% of the Greenstone Mine and it pretty much doubled their production and put them on the path to becoming a one million ounce a year gold miner. They are led by serial mining entrepreneur Ross Beaty who has successfully used the buy and build strategy many times over during his career. This year they will fine tune their mines and pay down debt, but with a rising price of gold, that will expand their free cash flow and help them substantially reduce their debt.
Goliath Resources
Goliath is my highest conviction gold explorer with an important discovery. They ended 2024 at C$1.01 and closed on Friday at C$2.26. What got them flying out of the starting gate in 2025 was the announcement on January 13th, that they hit a hole with 132.93 g/t gold equivalent over 10 metres. Shortly after that news went out, McEwen Mining made a strategic investment into Goliath Resources. Rob McEwen had personally participated in three private placements starting in 2023, when he recognized the potential of Goliath’s Surebet high-grade gold discovery. Rob McEwen is a member of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame due to the success he had building Goldcorp from a small struggling gold miner into a remarkable success story. He has also built a large portion of his wealth investing in mining stocks. Goliath’s Surebet discovery is one of the most important high-grade gold discoveries in the prolific Golden Triangle of British Columbia in many years. Making it a compelling story is the geological similarities it has to the Pogo Mine in Alaska. They have plenty of drill holes from their 2024 drilling season pending and I’m also very excited to see the first 12 holes from their potential VMS discovery at their Treasure Island project.
Heliostar Metals
Heliostar has transitioned from a gold explorer into a miner over the past few months after they purchased the La Colorada mine in Mexico from Argonaut Gold. They ended 2024 at C$0.57 and closed on Friday at C$0.90. I started covering the company due to their high-grade gold project Ana Paula, so I was duly impressed when they were able to acquire Argonaut Gold’s Mexican projects for a bargain price. In a few short months of production, they have already paid off the acquisition costs and are determined to become a 500k per year gold miner. They are led by Charles Funk, who is a very talented geologist, having led the team that discovered Vizsla Silver’s Panuco project. He is also a savvy mining entrepreneur and I like Heliostar’s chances to reach their near-term goals.
i-80 Gold
i-80 Gold has a high-quality group of assets with around 15 million ounces of gold resources in Nevada. They ended 2024 at C$0.69 and closed Friday at C$0.98. Until around the middle of 2024, they had been led by serial mining entrepreneur Ewan Downie, who amassed a stellar group of assets for i-80 Gold. He is a deal maker and explorer at heart and decided that it was time to hand the company over to a mine builder. In came Richard Young, who had built Teranga Gold from a small gold miner into a much larger producer that was ultimately bought out for C$2.8 billion. He is the right person for the job and has a fantastic group of assets to build i-80 Gold into an important Nevada focused gold miner, which is exactly what I think he will do over the next few years.
Orla Mining
I originally started following Orla Mining when they were building their Camino Rojo mine in Mexico. They ended 2024 at C$7.81 and closed on Friday at C$9.89. They have doubled in price from their lows in 2024, with much of that move due to their acquisition of the Musselwhite Mine in Ontario from Newmont. Musselwhite will enable them to double their production to over 300k ounces of gold annually and put them on the path to 500k ounces of annual gold production. One of their key shareholders is Pierre Lassonde who has been a shareholder since prior to them bringing Camino Rojo into production. They are a low-cost producer and I like their chances to grow into a mid-tier producer and likely larger. There just aren’t enough gold mid-tiers and it affords them great prospects for growth because they can look at gold mines that are not big enough to move the needle for the majors, but are company building mines for a mid-tier. Case in point, is Musselwhite, they were able to buy it because Newmont was selling several of their gold mines to focus on their biggest mines. Now it will be a key mine to help them grow into a much larger gold miner and ultimately it can put them on the path to buying and building other gold mines.
Power Nickel
Power Nickel is my highest conviction copper exploration company with an important discovery. They ended 2024 at C$1.06 and closed Friday at C$1.58. They have been on a tear over the past year since they made their Lion Zone discovery. It is a polymetallic discovery with high-grade copper over thick intersections and also benefits from having precious and base metals. It is being billed as a potential Norilsk in Canada. That is no small statement because Norilsk is one of the greatest mines ever. But, it always comes down to what is coming out of the Truth Machine with their drilling and it is certainly suggesting that comparison is not far fetched. They have attracted key investors including Rob McEwen, Robert Friedland and Gina Rinehart. These mining superstars have made their fortunes in the mining business and it is a heck of an endorsement of the quality of what Power Nickel has found. Based on a long list of fantastic drill holes, it is clear that Power Nickel is in the early days of a special discovery.
Ramp Metals (sponsor of Rocks And Stocks News, see disclosure)
Ramp Metals is a new kid on the block that has only been a publicly traded company for less than a year. They ended 2024 at C$0.80 and closed Friday at C$1.15. A couple months after they started trading, they were fortunate to make a grassroots discovery with the discovery hole returning 73.55 g/t gold over 7.5 metres. Grassroots discoveries of high-grade gold are in short supply these days, so for a brand new public company to make one is extraordinary. Due to such a high-grade hit, it enabled them to do a substantial financing to cash the company up at an attractive price and keep an extremely tight share structure. After making the discovery, they completed a surface sampling program and geophysics to prepare for the follow up drilling on their high-grade gold discovery in Saskatchewan. They are awaiting drilling permits, which should arrive shortly and they have lined up a driller to get rolling once they get the permits. They are cashed up to do a serious drilling campaign to expand on their discovery. So far, they are only one hole into a gold discovery. I have looked at their core and studied their data and think they may have only clipped the edge of the gold system. I like their chances to turn a grassroots discovery into an important discovery, and eagerly await their upcoming drilling campaign.
Vizsla Silver (sponsor of Rocks And Stocks News, see disclosure)
Vizsla Silver has one of the best high-grade silver-gold development projects anywhere in the world at their Panuco project in Mexico. They ended 2024 at C$2.46 and closed Friday at C$3.19. The metrics in their preliminary economic assessment are off the charts, with a base case IRR of 86%, a low capital cost of $224 million and rapid payback of the capital cost of only 9 months. Using current prices of silver and gold, the IRR jumps to over 100% and the payback falls to around 6 months. Metrics like that don’t come along very often, it reminds me of when I started covering SilverCrest, which built their Las Chispas mine into one of the best new high-grade silver-gold mines to come online in the past few years. Another similarity that Vizsla has with SilverCrest is mine builder Simon Cmrlec. He built the Las Chispas mine on time and on budget during the inflationary period after the Covid pandemic. He is Vizsla’s COO and they are in great hands with a talented mine builder to help them build Panuco into an impressive mine. Another exciting aspect of the Vizsla story is that the PEA was done on epithermal vein mines that only cover around 10% of their Panuco project. They have a cluster of epithermal veins to drill and potential to find blind veins as their spectacular Copala vein was a blind discovery they hit while drilling for another vein. They have a terrific combination of a high-grade silver-gold development project and plenty of exploration potential to keep them busy prior to building the mine and likely for many years into the future. Panuco is shaping up to become an entire mining district project that can rival some of the great ones in Mexico.
All the best,
Allan Barry Laboucan
Disclosure
Allan Barry Laboucan is a shareholder of Goliath Resources and holds warrants to purchase additional shares. Ramp Metals is a sponsor of Rocks And Stocks News, content creation about them is for the benefit of the company. Sponsors also benefit readers and viewers of the reports as it makes content creation possible for no charge to the Rocks And Stocks News audience. Vizsla Silver is a sponsor of Rocks And Stocks News, content creation about them is for the benefit of the company. Sponsors also benefit readers and viewers of the reports as it makes content creation possible for no charge to the Rocks And Stocks News audience..
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Allan Barry Laboucan, the founder and owner of Rocks And Stocks News, has extensive experience in the mining sector, beginning in 1993. Since 2005, he has been reporting on the sector. He has worked with talented geoscientists in geology, geochemistry, and geophysics throughout his career in mining. Allan applies the expertise gained during his career to evaluate sponsors and sector picks for reporting purposes. Whether a company is a sponsor or a sector pick, it undergoes the same rigorous review process, with coverage focusing on significant news or developments. Allan may hold shares in companies discussed in the reports, whether they are sponsors or picks, and he discloses such holdings when relevant.
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