5 Best Gold Mining Stocks to Buy Now

3. Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 27

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. It is a streaming company, primarily selling precious metals like gold, silver, palladium, and cobalt in Canada and internationally. 

Goldman Sachs analyst Emily Chieng on September 12 initiated coverage of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) with a Buy rating and a C$53 price target. The company’s latest stream acquisitions will generate stronger free cash flow, resulting in potentially higher capital returns, as per the analyst. The analyst said Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) provides the greatest exposure to precious metals among streaming peers, which merits its inclusion in our list of the best gold mining stocks to buy now. 

According to Insider Monkey’s data, 27 hedge funds held stakes worth about $631 million in Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) at the end of June 2022, compared to 28 funds in the prior quarter worth nearly $722 million. Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management is the leading position holder in the company, with 17 million shares valued at $613.65 million. 

In its Q2 2020 investor letter, First Eagle Investment Management, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“The strength in the price of gold was generally supportive of gold-related equities whose performance historically has been leveraged to the gold price. One such example is Wheaton Precious Metals, a Canadian streaming company that maintains, in our view, a high-quality, low-cost portfolio of precious metal purchase agreements that is well diversified across mining partners, geographies and metal types. Despite pandemic-related suspensions of six of its mining assets, Wheaton posted a 50% year-over-year increase in operating cash flow for the first quarter, which allowed the company to reduce its net debt while raising its quarterly dividend payment.”