Gold had a big year. The yellow metal surged from $2,600 per ounce to start the year to over $4,300 by the end of it for a 65% return. Gold mining stocks did even better. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF ($29 billion in assets) rose by 155%. After moves like that, a reasonable question comes up: is it too late to jump on board?
Daniel Oliver says no. Oliver runs the Myrmikan Gold Fund, which launched in 2010 and, as of a 2023 filing, managed about $30 million in assets. (Oliver, it should be noted, is a committed gold advocate, not a neutral observer.) In a research note published Thursday, he argues the gold trade is still early. More importantly, he says the usual problem for gold miners, rising costs that crush margins, aren’t a foregone conclusion.
His argument starts by looking backward. Gold didn’t lead markets during the bubble years. In 2024, speculative trades dominated returns. Big tech stocks surged. Bitcoin soared. Gold rose too, but it lagged riskier assets. Mining stocks lagged even more.
That pattern flipped in 2025. Speculative, “risk-on” assets cooled or retraced their prior moves. Gold, on the other hand, moved to the front. Mining stocks followed. Oliver says that shift matters because gold tends to perform best when credit is tightening (evidenced by the decline in speculative assets), not expanding. In those periods, gold prices often rise faster than most other commodities.
Oliver says that’s how this gold cycle is playing out. At least, so far.
The Federal Reserve is cutting short term rates, but the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds is now 50 basis points higher than it was in September 2024. That’s when the Fed kicked off its latest round of easing monetary policy. That combination points to potentially weaker credit growth than what you’d typically expect, not a boom. And without a boom, industrial commodity prices tend to lag gold rather than race ahead of it, according to Oliver.
History supports that view. During the 1970s, gold prices rose 1,400%, far faster than most industrial commodities. Copper, for example, gained just 45% that decade.
Oliver thinks those dynamics are returning. He expects oil prices to stay contained as U.S. supply expands and long term demand growth weakens. Energy, as you’d expect, is one of the largest mining inputs. Slower energy inflation helps protect margins. He also argues that most industrial commodities will struggle to keep up with gold in a slow growth environment.
That leads to his core claim. Gold miners, he says, are not facing the usual cost squeeze. If gold continues to rise faster than inputs, margins should widen, not compress.
Gold mining stocks had a spectacular 2025. Oliver doesn’t see this as a warning sign. He argues those gains look more like the start of a longer bull market than the end of one.
