Gold stocks have benefited from the sustained popularity of gold as an investment haven amid the global economic uncertainties.
As long as the dollar value, future inflation expectations, and gold demand both for practical uses and value hoardings remain valid concerns during the recovery and beyond, gold price will continue its decade-long march upward. And those issues are likely to stay in the face of imbalanced-trade situations, out-of-control government fiscal policies and lenient central-bank monetary policies, emerging-market influence on global capital flows, and etc.
In fact, gold price has increased from around $300 per-troy-ounce at the start of the last decade to today’s within striking distance of $12,000, an annualized return of 30% over the period. Any more crisis in the financial system will in the long run play further in the favor of gold and anything gold-related — such as gold mining.
Investing in Gold Stocks
Gold mining stocks are a logical substitute for investing directly in gold futures in the commodity market, which is not as common and easy as buying stocks for individual investors through their stock brokers.
Even though the gold ETF is designed to participate in the physical gold market on behalf of investors, gold mining stocks and their companies hold an important piece of the puzzle being on the supply side, as another part of the gold supply, gold hoarded by investors, may or may not be released to the market regardless of demand.
Absent of poor management and bad operations by gold mining companies, gold mining stocks can be a fair representation of the gold market and price in general, although the two may not move in total sync every step of the way.
List of Gold Mining Stocks
There are a total of over 300 gold mining companies listed and publicly traded in various U.S. financial markets alone. They range from having a market cap of tens of billions of dollars and being actively traded on the Big Board, to below 50 million dollars in market cap for the many so-called nano-cap companies, a notch further below micro caps.
In many cases, market caps for those in the nano rank can be well below the $50-million mark, fetching only a few thousand dollars or having no displayed market cap completely. Companies of these small scales or no scale are mostly penny stocks or even of no price quotations and thinly traded, if tradable at all, on either Over the Counter Bulletin Board or Over the Counter Pink Sheets.
Large Cap Gold Mining Stocks (over 10 billion dollars):
This list is organized with info on the Company, Market Cap, Symbol and the Exchange, respectively.
- Rio Tinto PLC (ADR) 89.4 RTP NYSE
- Barrick Gold Corp (USA) 39.8 ABX NYSE
- Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. 34.7 FCX NYSE
- Goldcorp Inc. (USA) 29.8 GG NYSE
- Newmont Mining Corp. 26.1 NEM NYSE
- AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ADR) 14.6 AU NYSE
- Kinross Gold Corp. (USA) 12.6 KGC NYSE
Mid Caps (between 2 and 10 billion dollars)
- Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (USA) 9.6 AEM NYSE
- Gold Fields Ltd. (ADR) 9.2 GFI NYSE
- Lihir Gold Ltd. (ADR) 8.7 LIHR NASDAQ
- Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (ADR) 7.8 BVN NYSE
- Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) 7.7 AUY NYSE
- Eldorado Gold Corp. (USA) 7.7 EGO NYSE
- Randgold Resources Ltd. (ADR) 7.3 GOLD NSADAQ
- IAMGOLD Corp. (USA) 6.0 IAG NYSE
- Harmony Gold Mining Co Ltd. 4.1 HMY NYSE
- New Gold Inc. (USA) 2.3 NGD AMEX
- Royal Gold Inc. 2.2 RGLD NASDAQ
Small Caps (between $300 million and $2 billion):
- NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) 1.7B NG AMEX
- Gammon Gold Inc. 978.5M GRS NYSE
- Jaguar Mining Inc. 841.5M JAG NYSE Arca
- Fronteer Development Group Inc. (USA) 716.0M FRG AMEX
- Gold Standard Mining Corp 643.6M GSTP OTC Bulletin Board
- Nevsun Resources Ltd. (USA) 574.1M NSU AMEX
- International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (USA) 464.6M THM AMEX
- Continental Minerals Corp. (USA) 319.5M KMKCF OTC Bulletin Board
Micro Caps (between $50 million and $300 million)
- Keegan Resources Inc. 293.0M KGN AMEX
- DrdGold Ltd. (ADR) 188.7M DROOY NASDAQ
- Vista Gold Corp. 99.2M VGZ AMEX
- Sara Creek Gold Corp. 78.2M SCGCE OTC Bulletin Board
- Solitario Exploration & Royalty Corp. 69.9M XPL AMEX
- Almaden Minerals Ltd. (USA) 54.8M AAU AMEX
The vast majority of the gold mining companies in the nano cap category are penny stocks and traded either on the OTC Bulletin Board or on the OTC Pink Sheets. They are omitted from this list.
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