I’ve updated the Core 5 with only current producers, focus on 1) production increase from now until 2029 2) tight share structure 3) growth in FCF (as it will drive share appreciation).  Had the following:

AYA, ASM, HSTR.V, SICO.V,  EGO.

Don D put out a list of top 10 gold producers over the weekend on X (sub if you don’t, it’s FREE!!) and I had my junior analyst put the stocks through a cage match so to speak, with the 10 going against the existing Core 5.   SICO and EGO were the defending companies and ARIS, WGX and MAU were the challengers for the Core 5 spots.

Here is Chat’s summary:

So, here’s the result of the weekend list…

This exercise validates something important about our methodology.

If we’d ranked by market cap, P/E, production size or even absolute FCF, WGX and ELD would probably beat SICO.

But that’s not what we’re building.

We’re looking for:

FCF growth PER SHARE.

That’s why SICO survives.

And it’s why ARIS beats ELD.

ARIS currently has about 206.6M shares and a visible route from ~325koz to ~500koz. Aris Mining Corp.

SICO has only 54.8M basic shares, two operating/restarting mines and a corporate target of 10Moz AgEq annually within three years. Silverco Mining

Those are precisely the situations where a bullish gold/silver macro can do enormous work for each individual share.

So my vote from Thunderdome is decisive: ARIS takes ELD’s seat. WGX becomes Challenger #1. SICO lives to fight another day.

Getting closer to Substack launch……