The conclusion of the first part of 2019 is one week behind, so we can provide a balance sheet of the best and worst performers of the period among the most-known U.S. publicly traded gold mining stocks.
Eldorado Gold (EGO, Financial) closed the first six months of 2019 being the best performer. The Canadian mid-tier gold producer increased 101% and outperformed the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX, Financial) by 82.5% over the period. The share price may have been influenced by the 5-to-1 reverse stock split that took place a few days before the end of 2018.
These gold stocks also performed very well: Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI, Financial) rose 44%, AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU, Financial) increased 35%, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM, Financial) jumped 24% and Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. (HMY, Financial) went up 18%.
Further, Kinross Gold Corp. (KGC, Financial) increased 13%, Barrick Gold Corp. (GOLD, Financial) went up 11%, Newmont Goldcorp Corp. (NEM, Financial) grew 9% and Yamana Gold Inc. (AUY, Financial) jumped 3%, but they underperformed the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF which increased 18.5%.
Below chart of GuruFocus shows leaders and laggards among gold mining stocks during the first part of 2019.
B2Gold Corp. (BTG) was flat.
In contrast, these miners reported losses: IAMGOLD Corp. (IAG, Financial) declined 14% and McEwen Mining Inc. (MUX, Financial) fell 9%.
For the next 52 weeks, investors may want to consider holding their positions in the large producers of gold such as Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Goldcorp Corp., Kinross Gold Corp., Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd.
These companies have strong fundamentals and can easily produce income in almost any kind of gold price scenario.
If gold will climb to $1,450 to $1,475 an ounce, it may make sense to invest in intermediate gold miners such as Iamgold Corp., Eldorado Gold Corp. and Yamana Gold. These companies beat the industry by wide margins only when gold reports strong growth.
The precious metal is now up trending. The cumulative average price per ounce is $1,310.15 as of July 5, reflecting 3.3% growth from the cumulative average price of 2018.
Possible Federal Reserve interest rate cuts before the end of 2019 and possible new tensions between the U.S. and China may boost the price of the precious metal.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any securities mentioned.
