These Are the ONLY Silver Miners I'd Buy If I Was Starting From Absolute Zero Today

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]John AG here, Simple Currency. And today's video is going to be one of the most useful things I've ever put on this channel for people who are just getting started because I'm going to answer the question I get asked more than any other question in my comments. If you were starting with nothing, no positions, no prior investments, building your silver miner portfolio from scratch today, where would you begin? What would you buy first? What would you buy second?

[00:00:23]And what would you avoid entirely?

[00:00:25]Before we get into it, for anyone new here, I don't sell anything. No courses, no signals, no private groups, no mentorships, nothing. If you've received a message from someone claiming to be John AG from Simple Currency and asking for payment, they are an impersonator.

[00:00:42]Block them and report them. I am only here on YouTube as Simple Currency. I share data-driven analysis to help you think more clearly. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing here is financial advice. Please do your own due diligence and consult a qualified professional.

[00:00:57]Drop Simple Currency in the comments.

[00:00:59]Tell me where you are on your investing journey. Are you completely new to silver miners? Are you already holding positions and looking to refine them? Or somewhere in between? Understanding where this audience stands helps me make this content more useful for you. Now, let's build this portfolio from absolute zero. The first thing I would do before buying a single share is something most people skip entirely. I would set up a tracking spreadsheet. Every position I open, I record the entry price, the number of shares, the date, and the reason I bought it. One sentence for the thesis. This sounds simple and boring.

[00:01:30]It is absolutely critical. Here's why.

[00:01:32]When a stock drops 30%, which silver miners do regularly, you will be tempted to panic and sell. If you have written down the reason you bought it, you can go back and ask a clear-headed question.

[00:01:43]Has anything changed about that reason?

[00:01:45]If the answer is no, the drop is an opportunity. If you never wrote down the reason, you're making decisions based purely on price movement and emotion.

[00:01:52]Emotion will destroy your returns in this sector faster than any bad stock pick. With that foundation established, here's how I would build the actual portfolio starting from zero.

[00:02:02]First purchase, day one, Wheaton Precious Metals, ticker WPM.

[00:02:07]I've spoken about Wheaton in detail in other Simple Currency videos. The streaming model, the risk-adjusted structure. The reason this is my very first purchase in a brand new silver portfolio is simple.

[00:02:17]Of all the ways to get precious metals exposure in the public markets, the streaming model offers the best combination of upside participation and downside protection. For a first-time investor in this sector who may not yet have the conviction to hold through a 50% drawdown in a junior miner, starting with Wheaton gives you exposure to silver and gold price moves without the operational volatility of a traditional miner.

[00:02:38]You learn the sector. You watch the commodity cycle. You build your understanding while your Wheaton position moves with relative stability.

[00:02:45]This is your anchor.

[00:02:47]Second purchase, Pan American Silver, ticker PAAS.

[00:02:51]Once I have the streaming anchor in place, my second purchase is the largest primary silver producer that checks all my balance sheet requirements.

[00:02:59]Pan American operates across multiple countries, produces significant silver output, maintains a reasonable debt structure, and has a track record of navigating commodity cycles without catastrophically diluting shareholders.

[00:03:10]This is the large-cap, liquid, traditional mining complement to the streaming position. Now I have two legs on my portfolio, a streaming company and a large established miner.

[00:03:20]Third purchase, Hecla Mining, ticker HL.

[00:03:23]Hecla adds something that neither Wheaton nor Pan American provides as directly, US-based production. As concerns about geopolitical risk and mining jurisdiction reliability become more prominent in investor thinking, having exposure to a miner that operates primarily within the United States becomes more valuable. Hecla's Lucky Friday mine in Idaho and their operations in Alaska are long-life established assets in one of the most mining-friendly jurisdictions in the world. This is the third leg. Now I have a streaming company, a diversified Latin American large cap producer, and a US focused producer. At this point, the new investor has a solid three stock foundation. All three are liquid. All three have established operating histories. All three can be held through a market downturn without an existential question about whether the company survives. That matters more than most new investors realize. About 70% of you watching are not yet subscribed to Simple Currency. If you're building your investment knowledge and this kind of structured step-by-step thinking is helping you, hit subscribe. Simple Currency is where people come when they're done with the noise and want actual substance. Drop Simple Currency in the comments. Tell me, if you were starting from zero today, is there a name you'd add that I haven't mentioned?

[00:04:31]Challenge me. I read every comment.

[00:04:33]Fourth purchase, First Majestic Silver, ticker AG.

[00:04:37]Once the foundation is solid, I start adding the growth layer. First Majestic is the purest large cap silver play available in the public markets. The majority of their revenue comes from silver, not gold. When silver moves, First Majestic feels it directly and immediately. This is deliberate, targeted silver exposure. First Majestic sits in a different risk tier than the foundation positions. Their operations are concentrated in Mexico, which carries jurisdiction risk. Their cost structure is higher than some peers, but their silver revenue purity is unmatched among similarly sized companies. This is where I begin taking on more targeted, concentrated silver price risk now that the foundation is established. Fifth purchase, MAG Silver, ticker MAG. By the time I'm making my fifth I've built a diversified multi-tier foundation. Now I can afford to add something with higher upside and higher risk. MAG Silver's Juanicipio mine is a joint venture with Fresnillo in Mexico and represents one of the highest grade silver deposits currently in production in the world.

[00:05:35]Single asset companies carry concentration risk. Geological risk at one mine has nowhere else to hide. But when the asset is of this quality and the management has proven their ability to execute, I'm willing to take that risk in a properly sized position. Max Silver is the highest conviction, highest risk name in the portfolio. I size it accordingly.

[00:05:53]Meaningful enough to matter if the thesis plays out, small enough that a catastrophic outcome doesn't destroy the overall portfolio.

[00:06:00]Let me address the things I would avoid starting from zero. I would avoid mining companies with high debt loads and rising all-in sustaining costs in the same breath.

[00:06:08]Debt plus cost inflation is a death sentence for a miner in a difficult commodity environment. I would avoid single jurisdiction companies in politically unstable regions as my first or second position.

[00:06:19]I would avoid names where the CEO is heavily promoting the stock on social media without proportional insider buying in the open market. Talk is cheap. Buying your own stock with your own money is the signal that matters.

[00:06:30]The bear case for this entire approach.

[00:06:33]Building a five-stock silver miner portfolio means you're making a concentrated sector bet. If silver enters a prolonged bear market, all five of these names will fall simultaneously.

[00:06:42]Sector concentration is a genuine risk that diversification across miners does not solve. True diversification requires exposure across different sectors, not just different companies within one sector. The bull case.

[00:06:54]Silver's structural supply and demand dynamics, the industrial demand tailwinds from green energy and technology, and the historically elevated gold-to-silver ratio all create a compelling multi-year setup for silver and the miners that produce it.

[00:07:07]A five-stock portfolio of quality, well-selected silver miners positioned at a reasonable point in the commodity cycle has historically produced extraordinary returns over a full bull market. The key is surviving the volatility long enough to capture those returns. Three takeaways. First, before buying a single share, create a tracking document with your entry price, share count, date, and written thesis for every position. This is your rational anchor during emotional market moves.

[00:07:34]Second, the five-stock portfolio for a new silver miner investor starting from zero is Wheaton Precious Metals as the streaming anchor, Pan American Silver as the diversified large cap foundation, Hecla Mining for US jurisdiction exposure, First Majestic Silver for pure silver revenue concentration, and MAG Silver for high grade asymmetric upside.

[00:07:54]Third, what you avoid matters as much as what you buy. High debt, rising costs, single jurisdiction concentration risk in unstable regions, and management that talks more than they buy, these are the filters that keep you out of the bad names. I am not a financial advisor.

[00:08:09]This is not financial advice. Do your own research. Be accountable for your own financial decisions. Subscribe to Simple Currency. Drop a comment below and tell me which of these five names would you start with first and why.

[00:08:21]Let's see how this community thinks. I read every single comment.