Gold is flying but only the right stocks get paid - here's 3 from a top manager

For anyone reading this article hoping to get some idea of where gold prices are headed – US$5,000? US$7,000? – let me relieve you of that expectation from the outset.

By my guest Rick Squire's own admission, he has no idea where the gold price is going. Nobody does.

No, this wire is about how to make money in a gold (and silver) boom via stock selection – because, as I learned from Squire, the stocks you pick along the explorer-developer-producer continuum matter as much as the commodity itself. You can be “right” on the macro view and still be wrong on the outcome if you’re positioned in the wrong pocket of the market.

By way of background, Squire manages the Acorn Capital NextGen Resources Fund, which recently topped Livewire’s top-performing Aussie equity funds category with a 90% return over CY25. He’s also a former geologist with more than two decades of experience. Suffice to say, he knows what he's talking about. 

What I like about Squire's framework is its practicality for investors who don’t live and breathe drill results. He doesn’t pretend to pick tops and bottoms. He thinks in “waves” – and he’s ruthless about rotating exposure as those waves roll through producers, then developers, and, only later, explorers. It’s the difference between getting the theme right and getting paid. As he put it: 

“As an investor, what I really think about is how do you make money out of this boom? And if you're backing the wrong horse in the right race, you're still not making any money. 

You've got to be on the right horse in the race.”

If you want more context on Squire’s broader resources framework (beyond just gold), here’s a previous piece I did with him that you might find useful: 

Equities

The Goldilocks zone for resource exploration (and four ASX companies nailing it)

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The mistake most gold investors make

Squire’s starting point is disarmingly simple: even in a roaring gold market, plenty of investors don’t make money because they’re in the wrong part of the market.

He points to what’s actually happened on the scoreboard: 

“If you've put your money into the gold explorers, the real grassroots explorers, you really haven't made any money over the last couple of years.” 

In his view, that’s not a surprise. Commodity bull markets tend to reward different cohorts at different times, and gold has been no exception.

The key is understanding what phase you’re in and positioning accordingly, rather than trying to “call” the price.

Waves, not price targets

Squire keeps returning to the same mental model: a wave that moves through the sector in a predictable sequence.

In gold, he says, “what we're seeing in this really strong bull market… the producers have done really well. Now the developers are coming through. So it's like a wave.” 

The logic is intuitive: producers benefit immediately from higher prices because they’re selling ounces today, with a largely fixed cost base. 

“The first ones to run are the producers… because they're actually making the gold bars… and they just generate more revenue.”

Then, as those producers become fully valued, capital hunts for the next rung. “When they get fully valued, then the developers are the next cab off the rank.” Only later do you want the grassroots explorers — because early on, they can simply be dead money while the market is paying up for cashflow and near-term delivery.

His warning is blunt: 

“You don't want to be into the developers or the explorers too early because they're not doing anything while the producers are going up.”

Why he won’t pick tops and bottoms

Squire is adamant that trying to pick turning points is a trap. One that he’s seen up close across cycles.

“Trying to pick that top is as crazy as trying to pick the bottom.” 

His workaround isn’t to avoid commodities. It’s to accept you can’t time price peaks, and instead focus on where you are in the equity-cycle wave and stay positioned in the segment that is being rerated right now.

His broader point is one that commodity investors learn repeatedly: 

“The thing about commodity bull markets is they always go for longer and higher than you ever expect.” 

Lithium is his recent reminder; a market that ran harder and longer than he expected, then turned viciously.

So rather than obsessing over whether gold is “too hot”, he frames it as an execution and positioning game: 

“Rather than trying to pick the top or the bottom, it goes back to this point of understanding where we are in that cycle and being invested in that part and being invested broadly because you don't want to be sitting in the stocks that are going sideways.”

Where we are now: Developers and near-term delivery

For 2026, Squire thinks the sweet spot in gold equities is shifting away from established producers toward developers - but with an important caveat: timelines matter.

“When I think about the gold sector, where the opportunity is, it's less so in those gold producers. It's really that development phase. That's where I think the gold market is right now. That's where the opportunity is for 2026.”

But he draws a sharp line between “near-term developers” and long-dated dreams. For investors, the risk isn’t just geology - it’s time and funding.

“You don't want a developer that's going to take three, four years to get into production because they could actually miss the gold boom.” And if the gold price pulls back (even to a level that’s still attractive in absolute terms), funding can disappear quickly: 

“Your ability to go out and raise capital to put a mine into production is going to be really challenging because everyone thinks it's [the gold price] going to $2,500.”

That’s why he favours projects that can move fast: “You want things that are near-term, can get into production quickly - and by quickly, I mean within 12, maybe 18 months.” 

Big capex, long timelines, and single-path dependency are where he sees asymmetry against you: 

“Those projects with big CapEx long timeline, they're a really dangerous place to play because if it comes off, it's great, but if it doesn't, they're the ones that fall the hardest.”

The stocks he likes and why

Squire highlights several names that (in his view) sit in the right part of the wave, with the common thread being development/ramp-up, simple execution paths, and the potential for rerating as milestones are hit.

#1 - Bellevue Gold (ASX: BGL) 

BGL is the clearest example of his “deleveraging” and execution framework. Bellevue is still ramping and not yet steady state, which is precisely why he sees upside if it executes: “They're trying to ramp up their production, they're on that ramp up phase.” The risk, in his words, is operational: “No, it's mainly operational. Are they going to hit their forecast?”

He outlines the path: if Bellevue meets milestones, it can reduce hedging and debt and become a different kind of market darling: 

“If they keep doing that, they'll deleverage, they'll get rid of that hedge book… and then they're off to the races.” 

But he doesn’t pretend it’s clean: 

“There's a lot of risk in terms of their ability to execute on that plan because they have a history of not doing it.”

#2 - New Murchison Gold (ASX: NMG) 

NMG is another significant holding, and what he likes is simplicity and execution clarity: a straightforward open-pit feeding an existing mill. 

“They've got a single, very simple… open cut mine… and they're just feeding it into the Bluebird mill that's owned by Westgold. So again, it's really simple geology.” 

In Squire’s worldview, that reduces the number of things that can go wrong while still leaving re-rating potential if delivery is strong.

#3 - Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) 

RXL is further out (production not until 2027, by his estimate), but he still flags it because construction progress and a tight register can drive sharp re-ratings as the story de-risks. 

“I think that Rox is probably the interesting one… they're starting things up, but going through that construction.” 

He adds that construction has become more “cookie-cutter” post-COVID disruptions, and he likes the scale: “This is a meaningful, 100,000+ ounce producer.” He also notes the re-rating dynamics: 

“A tight register, a company that's re-rating as they go through that into steady state production. Those stocks can re-rate really quickly, and Rox has got the potential to do that.”

And zooming back out, he gives readers a simple reason why he’s hunting here rather than just owning the majors: 

“You could put your money into Northern Star (ASX: NST), but you're just moving around with the gold price.” 

Squire's goal is to beat that by being in the right part of the wave - and in the right companies within it.

Lithium shows the same pattern, just faster

Squire’s wave framework isn’t gold-specific. He says lithium has been doing the same thing -  just at a higher frequency.

“Lithium went through the same evolution amid the recent… The companies that did really well - producers, the ones that struggled - the explorers, they haven't moved. The developers have only started to move in the last few months.” 

The key difference is volatility and speed: “The gold market booms, they're a lot longer term, whereas the lithium… they're more volatile, they're more rapid.”

He also uses lithium to underline why rotation matters. In the latter part of a cycle, producers can stagnate while explorers melt up: 

“In the latter stages of that bull market, the producers actually start to decline first while the explorers are really starting to take off.” 

His punchline is consistent: don’t be early, and don’t be loyal - follow the wave.

Silver: Harder access

On silver, Squire’s comments are brief and practical: in Australia, exposure is limited and often comes as a by-product of exposure to companies with other commodities as their primary focus. 

He flags Unico Silver (ASX: USL) as a standout example from his recent positioning: 

“We've been in, but recently sold out of, Unico. I think that's the standout. Great management team, high-quality project.” 

But he notes the fund’s recent focus has been more gold-centric: “Our focus has been more on gold recently… silver stocks have run pretty hard and we've cycled out of some of those and have moved on.”

That's Squire for you, always looking for the next wave.