Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices

Five gold mining investments glisten amid record prices that reached the highest price I have ever seen when it hit all-time high of $4,184.80 as I am writing my column at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

The five gold mining investments should have strong gains ahead if the price for the precious metal keeps climbing after zooming past the $4,000 per ounce mark last week. Some prognosticators are predicting that $5,000 per ounce could become the price of gold to notch a 25% gain from $4,000 per ounce. Wall Street investment firms and market forecasters alike are urging investors to gain a stake in gold due to a number of factors driving up its price.

The view of Rich Checkan, president and chief operating officer of Rockville, Maryland-based Asset Strategies International, is that gold is nowhere near its potential zenith. Checkan, who helped lead Asset Strategies International to become a full-service tangible asset provider of precious metals and rare coins, told me momentum is clearly on the side of the gold and silver bulls.

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Checkan’s Call

“We have a fragile peace in the Middle East,” Checkan said. “We have renewed drone and missile attacks from Russia into Ukraine. We have a dysfunctional government in the tenth day of a shutdown… and all they have managed to do is point blame at each other. We are clearly on track for another interest rate cut at the end of the month, and the U.S. dollar is languishing in a weakening trend.”

Gold should go “higher,” Checkan said. It should not be a “surprise,” he added.

Rick Checkan of Asset Strategies International.

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) predicted the price of the precious metal could rise to $4,900 by late 2026. So far in 2025, gold has gained more than 50% and gold futures have run up in 2025 at a faster pace than during the pandemic and 2007-09 recession, the Wall Street Journal reported. Only during an inflationary breakout in 1979 has gold soared much higher in a single year.

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Strategies

In addition, the risk of a recession is rising, based on the federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reporting second-real quarter gross output (GO) on Thursday, Sept. 25, which showed inflation-adjusted GO “lagged significantly” behind real GDP expansion, Mark Skousen, PhD, wrote to his subscribers in the October 2025 Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter.

Skousen also wrote an op-ed in the Sept. 29 Wall Street Journal, titled “Beneath the GDP, a Recession Warning.” The subtitle reported, “Business spending dropped sharply in the second quarter. Blame the trade war.”

His op-ed noted that while consumer spending is still robust, rising 2.8% in real terms during the second quarter, business (B2B) spending fell sharply at 5.6% during the quarter, largely due to ongoing trade wars. Gross output (GO) measures spending at all stages of production, not just the final one as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Budget Impasse 

Another risk is that the U.S. government is stuck in a budget impasse that has prevented funding of normal operations starting at midnight, Sept. 30. Attempts to reach a compromise to resume funding the federal government have failed so far.

The Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter led by Skousen for nearly four decades is recommending SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD). The choice has jumped close to 150% since it became part of the Forecasts & Strategies’ portfolio on March 2, 2020.

GLD is a “solid way” to be exposed to increases in the price of gold, Skousen wrote to his subscribers. SPDR Gold Shares is the largest physically backed gold ETF in the world. However, it is not a dividend payer.

Ben Franklin scion Mark Skousen heads TNT Trader and Forecasts & Strategies, with Paul Dykewicz.

For investors seeking a dividend-paying gold mining fund, consider VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX).

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Another gold mining stock that Skousen personally has recommended is Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC). He recommended it when it traded at just $9.80 on October 14, 2024. It now trades at $25.42 after rising more than 150% for his Forecasts & Strategies subscribers.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Tactical Trader

“I don’t see an end to this move anytime soon,” wrote Jim Woods to readers of his Tactical Trader advisory service about the unrelenting rise of gold. Tactical Trader recommends both stocks and options.

There likely will be pullbacks, but Woods wrote that the per-ounce price of gold reaching $5,000 is probably better than dropping back to $3,000.

Jim Woods leads Tactical Trader and Crypto and Commodities Trader.

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Carlson’s Choices

The Retirement Watch investment newsletter has recommended gold miners since early this year when they were trading at solid discounts to gold itself. Carlson recommended an income-paying exchange-traded fund (ETF), iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners (RING), in his Retirement Watch investment newsletter.

Bob Carlson heads Retirement Watch.

Since then, mining company shares have been making up lost ground. Carlson recently wrote that he expects them to reestablish their usual relationship to gold. RING more than doubled in the past 12 months.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Connell’s Call 

A need exists for investors to diversify with gold and bitcoin and even other cryptocurrencies, said Michelle Connell, who heads Dallas-based Portia Capital Management.

Investors should consider three additional risks when making their portfolio allocations: the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, declining domestic interest rates and record-high valuations for U.S. equities, Connell said. Connell advised that an allocation to gold is smart. She also likes exposure to cryptocurrency for up to 5% of one’s holdings for some of her Portia Capital Management clients.

Michelle Connell heads Portia Capital Management.

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Newmont Mining

Gold mining stocks have outperformed gold in 2025, Connell counseled. While gold has jumped slightly more than 55% so far this year, most of the gold mining ETF’s have made more than 100% in 2025.

Carlson’s recommendation of MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF, using the ticker RING, is economically priced with a fee of just .39% and will provide an investor significant exposure to the best companies in the business. Connell said. Among its top holdings, Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM) has a 15% weight.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Barrick Mining (NYSE: B) accounts for 8% of RING’s holdings, Connell added. Barrick Mining is another stock that Connell praised due partly to its still-modest valuation.

“If investors still feel there’s upside to gold, gold mining ETFs present a compelling investment due to their operating leverage and reasonable valuations,” Connell commented. “Gold mining companies have high operating leverage, meaning that their fixed costs are higher than their variable costs. According to many gold mining analysts, the breakeven point for these companies is $1,600 an ounce. Anything over that point goes towards profits.”

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Operating Leverage

The high operating leverage is a reason why gold mining stocks have performed better than gold this year, Connell continued. The gold mining companies are making more than gold itself even as the commodity rises in price, she added.

“The more the fixed costs are covered, the more the gold mining company makes,” Connell explained.

Despite the run-up in price, the gold mining stocks are not that expensive on a historical basis, Connell said. For example, Newmont Mining is trading at 15 times its forward earnings estimates, and its all-time high is 36 times, she added.

As for Barrick Mining, it also is trading at 15 times forward earnings. Its all time high is 25, Connell said.

“Instead of figuring out what company should be purchased, I would decrease company specific risk and buy a gold-mining ETF,” Connell said.

Five Gold Mining Investments Glisten Amid Record Prices: Dollar Dip

“Lower interest rates may lead to the continued decline of the U.S. dollar,” Connell commented. “As interest rates go down, the rate that the U.S. Treasury securities pay goes down as well. The result is a declining dollar.”

The dollar has already gone down 10% this year, Connell continued. That’s a reversal of the last 15 years when the U.S. dollar was in a bull market, she added.

“Strategists are predicting that 2026 will see a continuation of this new bear market for our currency,” Connell warned. “The above risks should lead investors to the conclusion that they need diversification.”

Establishing or creating new allocations to gold and bitcoin would be prudent, Connell continued.

Dividend-paying Gold Funds Fuel Portfolios Amid Record Prices: Geopolitics

Central banks worldwide have been buying gold for more than a decade, especially during the past three years. The result is that the precious yellow metal has surpassed the euro as the world’s second-largest reserve asset this year, trailing only the U.S. dollar.

The central banks bought 415 tons of gold in the first half, reported the World Gold Council. Many gold market observers expect continued central-bank purchases in 2026. Those purchases would further support or lift gold prices.

Source: World Gold Council

“I’ve told investors all year that gold belongs in portfolios, but in moderation,” said Dean Lyulkin, CEO of Cardiff, where he directs strategy, financial performance and investor relations for a portfolio that has delivered over $10 billion to U.S. small businesses.

An allocation to gold of 5-10% of one’s portfolio is the maximize that Lyulkin said he would suggest for investors. He called owning gold “insurance,” not alpha.

“The people materially changing their asset mix now aren’t hedging risk; they’re chasing heat,” Lyulkin commented. “The parallels everyone loves are with 2005–2011, when gold nearly quadrupled amid a structurally weak dollar and the shock of the global financial crisis. Back then, the greenback was in free fall for years as U.S. deficits ballooned and rates sank. That persistent dollar decline acted like rocket fuel.

“Today’s setup is milder. The dollar has cooled — down a few percent year to date — but it’s not in free fall.”

The U.S. dollar remains the reserve currency of choice, Lyulkin continued. The tailwind propelling the lift in gold prices is “real,” he added.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulDykewicz.