The Pick
Royal Gold, ticker RGLD, is one of the five names inside Porter Stansberry’s Royalty Riches. It is the second-largest precious-metals royalty company, with a market cap near $19.7 billion and a share price around $225.98 as of mid-August 2026.
Founded in the mid-1980s, Royal Gold owns royalties and streams across dozens of mines worldwide. It never operates a mine, and that is the whole point of Stansberry’s thesis: the operator funds the digging, while Royal Gold collects a top-line slice of revenue with almost no cost of its own.
The Efficiency Argument
The most striking number in the pitch is the headcount. Royal Gold runs its entire operation with 39 employees and reported $466 million last year. The promo frames this as “most profit per employee,” and while the marketing figure of $15 million per employee overshoots the net income math of roughly $12 million, the underlying point is real and rare.
One of the company’s early royalty stakes became Nevada’s Cortez mine, a landmark gold asset, and the firm has raised its dividend for 25 straight years. That combination, tiny payroll, recurring royalties, and a long payout streak, is the capital-light model working as designed. Our RGLD dividend explainer digs into the payout.
What to Watch
The caution is the price. Royal Gold trades near 30 times trailing cash flow, so the market has already priced in the efficiency. The stock is also down about 14.6 percent since the original April tease, which shows that even a quality royalty name can retreat when sentiment shifts. For the side-by-side view, see our gold royalty stocks comparison and our best royalty stocks guide.
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