Hycroft Mining

Hycroft Mining is one of the most unusual gold and silver stories in the entire mining sector. The single asset is the Hycroft Mine in Winnemucca, Nevada — a heap-leach operation that suspended mining in 2021 due to metallurgical problems with the deeper sulfide ore. Since then management has been running an exploration program plus a technical update aimed at a 2027 production restart.

What makes HYMC interesting beyond pure gold exposure is the 2022 ownership structure: AMC Entertainment bought a 22% stake at $1.193 per share, and Eric Sprott matched it. That alignment between a meme-stock company and one of the most respected gold investors on the planet remains intact in 2026 — Sprott still holds, AMC has not sold a single share.

The catalyst story for the next 18 months is the new Pre-Feasibility Study expected in H2 2026, which will lay out the path back to gold pours. With only 51 employees and a market cap of roughly USD 3.3B post reverse split, this is an exploration story with explosive optionality and equally explosive dilution risk — not a producing miner.

The most-watched 13F line on Hycroft is Sprott Mining. Eric Sprott's vehicle has not reduced its position since the 2022 entry at $1.193, which signals long-duration conviction in the asset rather than a trade. Sprott personally has stated multiple times that Hycroft is among his largest single bets across the precious-metals book.

AMC Entertainment still holds the original 22% stake. Adam Aron has reiterated on quarterly calls that AMC views Hycroft as a long-term inflation hedge rather than a trading position. The combined Sprott plus AMC float lock-up is roughly 40% of the share count — a structural support beneath the share price that is rare in junior miners.

Insider activity in 2025 and 2026 has been minimal. CEO Diane Garrett has small periodic open-market purchases of around USD 50-100K per filing, consistent with personal accumulation rather than insider distribution. No Form 4 sells of size from any officer or director in the past 12 months.

Hycroft does not generate earnings, so conventional P/E or EV/EBITDA metrics are not meaningful. The relevant valuation lens is EV per resource ounce. At a market cap of approximately USD 3.3B and roughly 12M ounces of gold-equivalent resource, HYMC trades at around USD 275 per resource ounce — at the high end of US junior-developer peers (median ~USD 150). The premium is justified only if the PFS confirms a credible restart pathway with sulfide recovery above 60%. Street targets vary widely from USD 18 (B. Riley, bear case assuming dilutive raise) to USD 65 (H.C. Wainwright, bull case at USD 3,500 gold). Investors should size HYMC as exploration-stage optionality, not as a producing-miner allocation.

1. H2 2026: Pre-Feasibility Study release detailing economic restart plan, sulfide recovery rates and required capex
2. Q4 2026: Year-end resource and reserve update — first formal resource model since 2022 mining suspension
3. H1 2027: Final Investment Decision and potential project financing package — likely trigger for dilutive equity raise

Hycroft is the cleanest example I know of a pure optionality bet inside a producing-sector ETF universe. You are not buying ounces produced — you are buying a binary on whether the H2 2026 PFS unlocks a credible 12M-ounce restart at todays gold price. The Sprott plus AMC float lock-up is the only reason I would even look at this name; without that 40% holder concentration the dilution math would be brutal. My personal position sizing here is in the speculative bucket only — never above 2% of total portfolio — and I would only add aggressively on a positive PFS confirming sulfide recovery above 60%.