RBC Capital Markets has taken on the difficult task of picking, as it says, "winners amongst winners" in the surging gold sector, and has come up with four names it believes will outperform.
The analyst team at RBC said gold's 13% or so increase over the second half of the financial year had driven strong equity returns.
They went on to say:
While valuations are no longer as cheap, they remain acceptable relative to gold's strength. We maintain our original FY26 investment framework and continue to favour miners delivering meaningful near-term production growth.
A key theme over the second quarter of the year just finished, they said, would be the fact that some gold miners would be moving to a tax-paying position as accrued losses were used up.
They flagged Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST), Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN), Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX: RMS), and Westgold Resources (ASX: WGX) as falling into this category.
They went on to say:
Balance sheets across our coverage remain in strong net cash positions, well-positioned to self-fund growth commitments. We cautiously favour investments in growth over operational/valuation safety. Gold's price strength has unlocked previously dormant in-ground value, and we believe now is the time to realise this latent value as potential projects.
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Best of a good bunch
The companies RBC has an outperform rating on are Westgold, Bellevue Gold Ltd (ASX: BGL), Vault Minerals Ltd (ASX: VAU), and Regis Resources Ltd (ASX: RRL).
On Westgold, RBC expects the company to deliver production for the quarter of 93,000 ounces of gold at a cost of $2824 per ounce, which is ahead of consensus estimates of 90,000 ounces.
The RBC team said any second-quarter weakness should be considered against the company's strong three-year production growth, and a pathway to producing 500,000 ounces of gold per year beyond FY28 at a cost of less than $2500 per ounce.
Regarding Bellevue Gold, which has already released its second quarter result, RBC said higher production was expected in the second half and, "Continuation of higher recoveries … over the financial year presents upside to our forecasts''.
Vault Minerals, the RBC report says, is expected to report 92,000 ounces of gold produced during the quarter, in line with consensus estimates.
This will have been the company's last hedged quarter, RBC says, and future earnings growth will come from the hedge book "rolling off".
Regis has also already released its second-quarter results, and RBC said it expected high free cash flow yields from the company for the 2026 and 2027 financial years.
