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

Rule Investment Media May 14, 2026

Summary

Rule argues resource equities are not excessive despite two years of gains, but liquidity-crisis risk means checking your own exposure.

Mining consolidation looks set to continue; Rule favors owning likely takeover beneficiaries because mergers cut overhead and lower capital costs.

Rule calls Cameco's flood-driven sell-off a buying opportunity, since a three-month outage barely dents reserves measured in decades.

Build NPV (net present value — discounted future cash flow) from measured and indicated resources only, then add back optionality for growth and tail.

Development-stage mining assets deserve a basket approach across several names, Rule says, never a single speculative position.

Key points on B2Gold

  • Rule says Clive Johnson's retirement announcement gives B2Gold's management maybe a year to fix the company's problems, and if they don't, 'the symbol changes.'
  • He flags two clouds over the company: its relations in Mali around its best mine, and a Canadian asset running over budget and behind time.
  • He argues B2Gold's share price is extraordinarily low relative to the sum-of-the-parts value of its high-quality assets, which makes even a company this size vulnerable to acquisition.
  • He says he is not predicting a B2Gold takeover, only pointing out how the math looks to acquirers.

Key points on Equinox Gold

  • Rule calls the Equinox takeover of Orla accretive — a full price, but paid with a currency whose shares have done extraordinarily well over the last 18 months.
  • He expects Equinox to follow what he calls the Ross Beatty script: sell tier-three assets and redeploy the proceeds into tier-one assets.
  • He predicts another Equinox acquisition within about a year of the Orla deal as it keeps growing by amalgamation.
  • He recalls saying in this classroom six months earlier that once Equinox finished its Canadian construction project it would grow by amalgamation.
  • He notes Equinox tripled — not merely doubled — after solving a similar over-budget, behind-schedule construction problem two years ago.

Key points on Evolution Mining

  • Rule names Evolution Mining among Australian gold miners he has good things to say about, noting it was started by his old friend James Askew.

Key points on KGHM Polska Miedz

  • Rule describes KGHM as the dominant company on Poland's Kupferschiefer copper-silver belt and, as a result, the largest silver producer on the planet.
  • He notes KGHM has mined the belt's contact mineralization for 80 years, and that the Polish government ruled for Lumina over KGHM in their earlier dispute.

Key points on Newmont

  • Rule surmises Seabridge's preferred joint-venture partner may be Newmont, based on its free cash flow and investment in the region, while stressing he does not know this to be the case.

Key points on Northern Star Resources

  • Rule calls Northern Star the biggest and easiest-to-buy name among Australian gold miners.

Key points on Pan American Silver

  • Rule says Ross Beatty's Pan American record is a fairly good name in silver, which adds weight to Beatty's Lumina Metals venture.

Key points on i-80 Gold Corp

  • Rule owns i-80 Gold and argues it trades at a discount to the sum of its parts, though he views it as mostly a collection of tier-two assets with one exception.
  • He says the company has solved its balance-sheet problems and can now finance and build what would be Nevada's second operating autoclave.
  • He expects the autoclave to lift cash margins from existing operations and to let i-80 acquire other stranded Nevada assets that need autoclave access.
  • He holds it on a roughly five-year strategic horizon and suggests speculators with shorter timeframes may want to sit it out.
  • He credits management with unusual clarity on the path forward, which is why he will own a portfolio that is mostly tier-two.

Key points on Mcewen Mining Inc

  • Rule says McEwen's Golden Lake acquisition is too small to interest him — a satellite deposit that might amortize existing infrastructure.

Key points on Seabridge Gold

  • Rule rates Seabridge a five and says today's gold price works in the stock's favor.
  • He thinks it is highly likely the Tudor legal action is holding up a joint venture, since no partner wants to inherit a lawsuit.
  • He says Seabridge is in the mid-to-final stage of negotiations with a preferred joint-venture partner, and he surmises it may be Newmont given its free cash flow and investment in the region.
  • He expects no announcement before the Tudor dispute is settled or adjudicated, and says Rudy will not reveal the partner's name.

Key points on Tudor Gold

  • Rule says it is highly likely Tudor's legal action is holding up the Seabridge joint venture.
  • He expects no announcement before the dispute sees settlement or adjudication.

Key points on Vizsla Silver

  • Rule says Vizsla Silver's spin-out of Vizsla Royalties was vindicated when EMX moved to take over the royalty company.
  • He recounts asking at the time why they did not simply sell the royalty and being told 'watch, you'll see.'

Key points on Franco-Nevada Corp

  • Rule recalls co-founder Pierre Lassonde telling him that after some 40 years of production, Franco-Nevada's tier-one Nevada royalty assets hold more reserves today than when the royalties were bought.

Key points on Kenorland Minerals Ltd

  • Rule says what you buy in Kenorland is a superb geological team with a unique model: stake large frontier greenstone belts in Canada, systematically sample them, develop targets, then bring in joint-venture partners after de-risking.
  • He estimates 75-80% of Kenorland's market cap is now explained by its existing flagship royalty, while flagging that figure as speculative because deposit size and production timing are unknown.
  • He notes the stock has roughly quadrupled since he has owned it and compounded at about 70% a year since being introduced at his conference three years earlier.
  • He cites the Frotet discovery — which he says will definitely be a mine, with partner Sumitomo in Quebec — as proof of the model, repeated five or six times since.
  • He points viewers to his interview with founder-CEO Zachary Flood recorded three or four days before this Q&A.

Key points on Maple Gold Mines Ltd

  • Rule has upgraded Maple Gold from a six to a five on his scale after rethinking its infrastructure position in the Abitibi.
  • He once saw it as a me-too deposit, but says much-improved roads, power and access to nearby under-utilized mills now let deposits too small to fund their own mill generate real value by trucking ore to adjacent mills.
  • He credits his Boca symposium interview with Ammar Aljundi for prompting him to re-examine how much Abitibi infrastructure improved over the 40 years he has followed the region.
  • He says he always liked the deposit's size and potential — it was the lack of infrastructure access that his upgrade removes.

Clive Johnson's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule cites Clive Johnson's retirement announcement at B2Gold, arguing it gives current management maybe a year to fix the company's problems or see the symbol change.

Zachary Flood's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule mentions interviewing Kenorland founder-CEO Zachary Flood three or four days before this Q&A and calls the interview illuminating.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule argues resource equities are not excessive despite two years of gains, but warns a 2008-style liquidity crisis is a real enough risk that overexposed investors could become involuntary sellers — position sizing has to balance both.
  • He says the mining consolidation he has forecast for two years is playing out — Equinox's takeover of Orla being the latest example — and owning likely takeover beneficiaries should remain a good strategy for a couple more years.
  • He is struck that copper is breaking out against the pressures he expected — high rates and soft economics — and calls the move very interesting while offering no conclusion and conceding it may be a false start.
  • He views the oil move from $65 to $100-105 since the Gulf conflict began as anticipatory of rationing by price, and expects higher prices if the conflict is not resolved soon.
  • He reports high-quality exhibitors at reasonable prices for the Boca Raton conference, says the live portion is sold out, and backs the live stream with a money-back guarantee.

Steve Barton's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Barton says he sat in on a silver producer's first-quarter call that morning and was impressed by reported margins of $60 an ounce of silver.
  • He hosts the Q&A and previews upcoming classroom streams, including an Adrian Day live stream the same day and a Joe Mazumdar chart session.

Brent Cook's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule relays Brent Cook's critique that the company behind the newly reported high-grade discovery has a messy share structure, scattered all over the page.

Ross Beatty's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule credits Ross Beatty with judging 20 years ago that the Kupferschiefer contact mineralization extended beyond KGHM's ground, staking it, and drilling off one of the biggest, highest-grade undeveloped copper-silver deposits on the planet at Lumina Metals.
  • Rule labels Equinox's amalgamate-then-prune growth approach — selling tier-three assets to fund tier-one ones — a textbook Ross Beatty growth story.