The smartest call on gold miners right now has almost nothing to do with the price of gold.
Gold has been the headline trade for two years. It sits near $4,140 an ounce as of June 23, after a record start to 2026 and a long slide into the summer, and the companies that dig it are sitting on piles of cash. Most investors still treat those miners as one thing, a pure bet on bullion.
A different metal is starting to drive the story, and it is buried in the same rock.
Artificial intelligence is straining the world's supply of copper, the wiring that carries power through every data center going up. Some of the biggest gold miners pull it out of the very same pits, which quietly ties a classic safe-haven trade to the most aggressive growth theme in the market.
Wall Street has started to act on it. Jefferies just put Barrick (B) on a short list of miners it wants clients to own, and the reason was copper, not the metal in the company's name.
Gold has been the headline trade for two years. It sits near $4,140 an ounce as of June 23, after a record start to 2026 and a long slide into the summer, and the companies that dig it are sitting on piles of cash. Most investors still treat those miners as one thing, a pure bet on bullion.
A different metal is starting to drive the story, and it is buried in the same rock.
Artificial intelligence is straining the world's supply of copper, the wiring that carries power through every data center going up. Some of the biggest gold miners pull it out of the very same pits, which quietly ties a classic safe-haven trade to the most aggressive growth theme in the market.
Wall Street has started to act on it. Jefferies just put Barrick (B) on a short list of miners it wants clients to own, and the reason was copper, not the metal in the company's name.
2 months ago
