Gold mining stocks do something physical gold cannot: they multiply the metal’s moves. A bar of gold gains one dollar for every dollar the metal rises. A mining company is different, because a rising gold price reprices its entire reserve base all at once, including the ounces that will not come out of the ground for years. Jim Rickards builds his “Trump’s Secret $2 Gold Mine” pitch on this dynamic, and the company at the center is Northern Dynasty Minerals, the owner of the Pebble Project in southwest Alaska.

The Mechanics of Amplification

The math Rickards uses is worth spelling out, because it explains both the upside and the risk. Pebble holds an estimated 161 million ounces of gold in the ground. Every $100 rise in the gold price revalues that reserve base by roughly $16 billion, which is 161 million ounces times $100. That is the source of the pitch’s “every $100 gold rise adds $16 billion” line.

The catch is that this is the gross in-situ value of metal still in the ground, not profit. The figure ignores the enormous cost of building and operating a mine, the capital expenditure required to develop a remote Alaskan site, the processing and tailings costs, and the fact that the project is not yet permitted. A reserve is worth something, but an unpermitted, undeveloped reserve is worth far less than the metal price times the ounces.

The Company Behind the Pitch

Northern Dynasty Minerals trades on the NYSE American under the ticker NAK and on the Toronto exchange as NDM.TO. The shares were teased at $1.95 back in April and $1.72 in July, and now sit near $1.61, with a market capitalization around $900 million. The stock has drifted lower since the tease, which tells you the market has not yet bought the story. For more on why mining stocks amplify gold’s moves in the first place, see our explainer on gold mining stocks.

The Permitting Question

The reason Pebble trades more like a lottery ticket than a mine is permitting. The project has been stuck for more than two decades, and it sits near Bristol Bay, home to the most valuable wild salmon fishery on earth. The EPA issued a Clean Water Act veto in January 2023, and the Army Corps of Engineers rejected a permit in 2024. Northern Dynasty and the state of Alaska sued, and a summary-judgment ruling in that litigation is the real event behind Rickards’ November 3 countdown, not a mine approval. That distinction matters, because a favorable ruling would not break ground the next day. It would simply clear one legal hurdle in a process that has been running for twenty years.

How This Fits a Gold Position

For an investor who wants exposure to gold’s rise, mining stocks are the highest-voltage expression of the idea, and NAK is an especially concentrated version. The amplification is genuine, but it cuts both ways: the same repricing that can send a junior miner up sharply can unwind just as fast. For the fundamentals behind the metal itself, see our piece on the gold price and what drives it, and for a wider look at the sector, our guide to gold mining investment.

Gold mining stocks are not a substitute for gold; they are a magnifier bolted on top of it. Understanding that amplification, and the specific permitting risk attached to a name like NAK, is the difference between an informed position and a guess.

The Gold Tailwind Behind the Pitch

It is worth separating the company from the metal, because the metal’s case is strong on its own. Central banks have been buying gold at the heaviest pace since 1950, putting a structural floor under the price. Real interest rates have been falling, which removes the cost of holding an asset that pays no yield. The dollar has been under pressure, which makes gold cheaper for foreign buyers. Rickards, who was the general counsel at Long-Term Capital Management and helped negotiate its 1998 rescue, frames all of this through a macro lens he has written about for years in his books on currency and monetary policy.

That tailwind is genuine, and it is the reason gold mining stocks as a group have been drawing attention. The caution is that a tailwind for gold is not the same thing as a tailwind for any single unpermitted deposit. Gold can keep climbing while a particular project stays stuck in court, and the two outcomes are not linked. An investor who believes the gold story does not have to believe the Pebble story to act on it. There are producers, funds, and diversified miners that capture the metal’s rise without betting on a single permitting outcome in Alaska.

That distinction is the most useful thing to carry away from the pitch. The gold thesis and the NAK thesis are separate bets, and they should be evaluated, and sized, separately.

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