Owning physical gold is expensive and many people find it complicated. Gold stocks are great alternative to diversify your portfolio without the hassle of buying and storing physical gold.
Gold mining and production companies are a good way to hedge against changes in the price of gold because their stock prices might not respond as quickly to changes in the metal’s value. Gold stocks may even outperform gold itself, according to some investors.
Here is a brief guide to help you if you want to invest in gold stocks right away.
What Are Gold Stocks?
Gold stocks represent shares in businesses engaged in the gold industry, such as mining corporations, gold mutual funds, or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Owning gold stocks entitles you to a piece of the company’s profits or losses, depending on your investment.
The gold industry includes the following types of entities:
- Mining Companies: These businesses extract and sell gold. The mining sector is worth billions of dollars and has the power to change the direction of international markets.
- Dealers of precious metals: Precious metals dealers are companies that sell precious metals to private customers and smaller retailers. Precious metals merchants supply gold to coin retailers, investment firms, jewelry manufacturers, and general public.
- Gold-Focused Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs): These funds invest in physical gold or shares of various gold mining companies. They give an opportunity to investors to profit from gold price changes without owning the physical asset.
- Gold Streaming and royalty companies: Metal royalty and streaming companies provide funds for mines in exchange for future payoffs. Royalty companies receive a fixed percentage of the mine’s revenue, while streaming companies receive the right to buy future production of physical metals at fixed price.
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How to Choose the Best Gold Stocks For 2025?
Investing in gold stocks can be more profitable than owning physical gold since companies can grow their production and lower costs, potentially increasing their stock prices faster than the price of gold. However, not all gold stocks outperform the commodity, so choosing wisely is crucial. Here are the key criteria for identifying the best gold stocks:
- Healthy Solvency and Liquidity ratios. Gold companies often carry significant debt. We can evaluate a company’s capacity to fulfill its short-term and long-term financial commitments with the help of the solvency and liquidity ratios. All the company’s assets, including long-term loans like bonds with maturities longer than a year, are examined using solvency ratios. However, liquidity ratios only include the most liquid assets, including cash and marketable securities, and how they can be used to pay short-term obligations.
- Strong Dividend Ratios. A dividend yield of at least 1% signals stability and profitability, though gold stock dividends can be inconsistent due to the industry’s cyclical nature.
- Increasing Sales and Revenue growth. A positive Revenue Growth Rate suggests that the company is successfully growing its business.
- Price–earnings (P/E) ratio. The market value price per share is divided by the company’s earnings per share (EPS) to determine the price-earnings ratio. A high P/E ratio may indicate that a stock is overpriced and that its price is high in relation to its earnings. The current stock price may be cheap in relation to earnings if the P/E ratio is low. Keep in mind that gold is a cyclical commodity, and businesses in the sector are typically cyclical as well. When gold prices are high, their profits increase; when they fall in the upcoming days, their profits diminish.
- Stock Exchange Criteria. Look for companies listed on major exchanges and trade a minimum of 200,000 shares daily. Stability in the number of outstanding shares is a bonus.
Best Gold Stocks For 2025
The top gold companies for 2025 based on the best value and growth:
- Newmont Corporation (NEM) (NYSE) is the world’s largest gold mining company with high-quality assets. It was incorporated back in 1921 and currently it owns gold mines in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Australia, Ghana, Argentina, Peru, and Suriname. In addition to gold, Newmont also mines copper, silver, zinc and lead. NEM gained new mines, personnel, and infrastructure when it acquired Goldcorp in 2019 and Newcrest in 2023. It is the only gold company in the S&P 500 stock market index.
- Barrick Gold Corporation (GOLD) (NYSE)operates in 13 countries and produces gold and copper. Barrick was founded in 1983 and it was the biggest gold mining firm in the world until Newmont purchased Goldcorp in 2019.
- Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV) a Canada-based streaming and royalty company. Unlike traditional mining companies, the nature of its business allows to benefit from gold mining without capital and operating cost overruns. This significantly reduces its exposure to risk.
- Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (WPM) is another strong buy based in Canada. It is recognized by Corporate Knights as one of the 2025 Global 100 most sustainable corporations of over more than 8,300 public companies with revenue over US$1 billion. Wheaton was highly rated based on its responsible behavior and sustainable revenue generation. Wheaton collaborates with mining companies to secure a portion of their future precious metals production. This is the reason why their performance depends on the success of their mining partners.
- Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (AEM) is operating mines in Canada, Australia, Finland and Mexico. They are also based in Canada and are the third largest gold producer in the world. Since its founding in 1957, the company has continuously generated value for its investors and, since 1983, has declared a cash dividend annually.
Are Gold Stocks For You?
Gold is a cyclical commodity, and the profitability of companies in the industry fluctuates with gold prices. This cyclicality should be factored into your evaluations.
For long-term investors, understanding the volatile nature of the industry is essential. If you’re interested in trading gold stocks or ETFs, focus on technical analysis, momentum, and risk/reward ratios to guide your decisions.
An Alternative to Gold Stock Investing
A gold IRA is an Individual Retirement Account that holds physical gold or other approved precious metals in custody on behalf of the account owner. Unlike a Traditional IRA, which typically contains paper assets, a gold IRA stores physical precious metals in a secure vault. Here you’ll find detailed information if you are interested to read more about gold IRAs.
For this type of investment, I recommend GoldCo Precious Metals to guide you during the process. They specialize in helping customers transfer their retirement investments into Gold and Silver IRAs, which can be an excellent option for long-term financial growth. There are many Gold IRA companies you can choose from but GoldCo is recognized as one of the most trusted in the United States.