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Live Q&A with Rick Rule, hosted by Steve Barton 📱

Rule Investment Media May 15, 2026

Summary

Rick Rule argues resource equities remain reasonably priced after two years of gains, but a 2008-style liquidity crisis could force overexposed investors to sell.

Consolidation keeps rewarding shareholders: mergers cut duplicated overhead, and larger miners gain index inclusion, passive buying, and a lower cost of capital.

Oil's move from $65 to $105 is anticipatory pricing for rationing, so an unresolved conflict points to higher energy prices ahead.

Copper holding firm despite oil-driven slowdown and speculator selling defies Rule's expectations, an anomaly he flags without claiming an answer.

In the Q&A, Rule calls Cameco's flood a buying opportunity, favors debt-free Uranium Energy, and explains net present value's blind spots on tier-one deposits.

Key points on B2Gold

  • Rick argues B2Gold trades at an extraordinarily low price relative to the sum-of-the-parts value of its high-quality assets, making even a company this size vulnerable.
  • He sees two clouds over the stock: relations in Mali over its best mine, and a Canadian asset that is over budget and behind schedule.
  • With Clive Johnson retiring, Rick says current management has maybe a year to fix the problems; if it does not, 'the symbol changes.'
  • He stresses he is not predicting a takeover of B2Gold, only pointing out the vulnerability.

Key points on Equinox Gold

  • Rick calls Equinox's takeover of Orla accretive - a full price paid with a strong currency - creating a million-ounce-plus mid-tier producer.
  • He expects Equinox to dispose of tier-three assets and make another acquisition within about a year, following what he calls the Ross Beatty script of selling tier 2-3 assets to concentrate on tier 1.
  • He recalls predicting six months earlier that once Equinox completed its Canadian construction project it would grow by amalgamation, which he says is now happening.
  • He notes that when Equinox solved a similar over-budget Canadian problem two years earlier, the share price tripled against his expectation of a double.

Key points on Evolution Mining

  • Rick says he has a lot of good things to say about Evolution Mining, which was started by his old friend James Askew.

Key points on KGHM Polska Miedz

  • Rick identifies KGHM as the dominant miner of Poland's copper-silver district and, as a consequence, the largest silver producer on the planet.
  • He recounts that in a dispute between KGHM and Lumina, the Polish government found for Lumina against the incumbent.

Key points on Newmont

  • Rick surmises - without knowing - that Seabridge's preferred joint venture partner is Newmont, based on its free cash flow and investment in the region.

Key points on Northern Star Resources

  • Asked for top-quality Australian gold miners, Rick points to Northern Star as the biggest and the easiest to buy.

Key points on Pan American Silver

  • Rick describes Ross Beatty's Pan American as a fairly good name in silver.

Key points on i-80 Gold Corp

  • Rick owns i-80 Gold and believes it sells at a discount to the value of the sum of its parts.
  • His knock: with one exception, none of the deposits look tier one, making it a consolidation of attractive but tier-two projects.
  • With balance sheet issues solved, he says i-80 can finance and build what would be Nevada's second operating autoclave, accelerating development, lifting cash margins, and enabling acquisitions of stranded Nevada assets that need autoclave access.
  • He owns it on a roughly five-year strategic plan and suggests shorter-timeframe speculators might sit this one out.

Key points on Mcewen Mining Inc

  • Rick notes McEwen bought Golden Lake, a satellite deposit he considers too small to be of interest to him.

Key points on Seabridge Gold

  • Rick thinks it is highly likely that the Tudor legal action is holding up Seabridge's joint venture, since no potential acquirer wants to inherit a lawsuit.
  • He says Seabridge is in the mid-to-final stage of negotiations with a preferred JV partner, whom he surmises - without knowing - is Newmont based on its free cash flow and investment in the region.
  • He doubts any JV announcement comes before settlement or adjudication of the Tudor dispute.
  • He rates Seabridge a five on his scale.

Key points on Vizsla Silver

  • Rick says he questioned Vizsla Silver's spinout of Vizsla Royalties at the time and was told 'watch, you'll see.'
  • He notes the strategy was vindicated when Vizsla Royalties was taken over by EMX the day before this discussion.

Key points on Franco-Nevada Corp

  • Rick relays that co-founder Pierre Lassonde told him Franco-Nevada's tier 1 Nevada assets hold more reserves today, after 40-something years of production, than when the royalties were bought 40 years ago.

Key points on Kenorland Minerals Ltd

  • Rick says Kenorland has been roughly a quadruple since he has owned it and has generated about 70% compound returns since he introduced it at his conference three years ago.
  • He estimates 75-80% of the market cap is now explained by the existing flagship royalty, a speculative number because the deposit's eventual size and production timing are unknown.
  • What investors buy, he argues, is a superb geological team with a unique model: stake frontier Canadian greenstone belts, systematically sample them, develop gold targets, then bring in joint venture partners after derisking.
  • He says that model discovered Frote in Quebec with partner Sumitomo - 'which will definitely be a mine' - and has been repeated five or six times since.

Key points on Maple Gold Mines Ltd

  • Rick has upgraded Maple Gold from a six to a five on his scale.
  • He dropped his 'me too' objection after re-examining Abitibi infrastructure: improved roads, power, and - critically - access to processing facilities let a deposit without the reserves to fund its own mill truck material to an adjacent hungry mill.
  • He always liked the deposit's size and potential; lack of infrastructure access was the knock that kept the ranking down.

Clive Johnson's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick notes Clive Johnson's retirement announcement at B2Gold suggests current management has maybe a year to fix the company's problems before, in his words, 'the symbol changes.'

Zachary Flood's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick points questioners to his interview of a few days earlier with Kenorland founder-CEO Zachary Flood, calling it very illuminating.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick's central argument: natural resource equities are not excessive despite two-year runs - gold free cash flow and rising M&A suggest they have a long way to go - yet a 2008-style liquidity crisis is a strong enough possibility that investors must size positions against their account liquidity.
  • He advocates putting part of a portfolio in likely takeover beneficiaries, arguing consolidation driven by G&A elimination, index inclusion, and passive buying should remain a good strategy for a couple of years.
  • He reads oil's move from $65 to $105 as anticipatory of rationing by price; with strategic reserves running down and jet fuel shortages curtailing flights, he sees prices going higher unless the Gulf conflict resolves soon.
  • He flags copper's breakout against his muted economic outlook, high rates, and selling by speculative holders as exactly the opposite of his expectation - noteworthy, though he offers no conclusion.
  • He discloses owning i-80 Gold, Marimaca, NexGen, IsoEnergy, and the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, and repeatedly declines to rank names he cannot judge rather than padding answers.

Steve Barton's takeaways

  • Top takeaway As host, Steve Barton relays Rule Classroom Plus viewer questions to Rick Rule and adds market color, citing a silver producer's reported $60-an-ounce margins from that morning's earnings call.
  • He promotes the upcoming free lineup: Monday chart analysis, a Joe Mazumdar live stream, and another Rick Rule Q&A.

Craig Parry's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick says he likes the Vizsla Copper people, particularly Craig Parry, a lot - even while choosing not to own the stock.

Brent Cook's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick cites his friend Brent Cook's observation that Mogotes Metals' share structure is 'a little bit messy.'

Ross Beatty's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rick calls Equinox's post-acquisition playbook - selling off tier 2-3 assets acquired via amalgamation and redeploying into tier 1 - a textbook Ross Beatty growth story.
  • He says Beatty spent two decades building Lumina Metals, staking the extension of KGHM's long-mined Polish contact mineralization 20 years ago on a read of the geology.
  • The result, 18 years later, is what Rick calls one of the biggest, highest-grade undeveloped copper-silver deposits on the planet, taken public at $8 a share.
  • He credits Beatty's standing - Pan American being a fairly good name in silver - and says his companies always carry a sterling management team.