I Screened 200 Miners — Only 3 Passed (Ticker Symbols Inside)

[00:00:00]Over the past several weeks, I have been doing something that most people in the silver space are not doing. While everyone else has been reacting to price charts and Twitter screenshots, I have been going through financial filings, one by one, company by company, not headlines.

[00:00:13]Actual SEC filings, actual production data, actual balance sheets, actual all-in sustaining costs. I started with a list of over 200 publicly traded silver mining and streaming companies.

[00:00:23]Everything from mega cap producers down to junior explorers with no revenue and a dream. I built a screening framework with five specific criteria, and I eliminated companies one by one until I had three left. Three companies out of 200 that passed every single filter. And today, I'm going to tell you exactly what those three companies are, what the screening criteria were, and most importantly, why most of the other 197 failed.

[00:00:46]Because here's the thing about silver mining stocks that nobody explains clearly enough. Not all silver miners are the same, not even close. Some of them are printing cash at current silver prices, some of them are barely surviving. Some of them look like they are making money until you read the actual numbers and realize their all-in costs are so high that a 30% silver price correction would push them into losses. The difference between owning the right three silver miners and the wrong three silver miners in this environment is not a small difference in returns. It can be the difference between building real wealth and watching a position go to zero. Before we go further, I am John AG, and this is Simple Currency. I do not sell anything.

[00:01:22]No signals, no courses, no memberships, no paid groups. If anyone contacts you claiming to represent this channel with a paid offering, that is not me. Block them immediately. I am only here.

[00:01:33]Everything I publish is free. Now, let me walk you through the five criteria I used, and then show you which three companies passed all five. Filter one.

[00:01:41]All-in sustaining cost below $20 per silver equivalent ounce. This is the most important single number in silver mining. All-in sustaining cost, or AIC, is the true cost to pull 1 oz of silver out of the ground, process it, pay the workers, handle environmental obligations, pay royalties, and keep the business running. It includes everything.

[00:02:01]When silver is at $63 today and your AIC is $25, your margin is $38 per ounce.

[00:02:07]When your AIC is $12, your margin is $51. The $13 difference per ounce multiplied across millions of ounces of annual production is the difference between a good mining company and an extraordinary one. I set the threshold at $20 because any company above $20 is at meaningful risk of margin compression if silver prices fall further from current levels.

[00:02:28]I eliminated 81 companies in this first filter alone. Filter two, reserve life above 10 years. A mine is only worth what it can produce.

[00:02:36]If a company has a reserve base that will be exhausted in five or six years, you are not buying a long-term business.

[00:02:42]You are buying a declining asset.

[00:02:44]Long reserve life means the company has proven, drilled out, economically viable silver in the ground that can be mined for a decade or more at current production rates.

[00:02:52]10 years is the minimum I will accept.

[00:02:54]Companies with 15, 20, or 30-plus year reserve lives are in a fundamentally different category.

[00:02:58]This filter eliminated another 54 companies. Filter three, jurisdiction score of stable or better. Every mining company operates somewhere, and where you operate matters enormously. Mexico is increasingly nationalist mining regulation, South America has political risk in multiple countries. Africa carries geological upside but regulatory and security risk.

[00:03:18]Canada and the United States have clear permitting frameworks, rule of law, and predictable tax treatment. I did not eliminate all non-US and non-Canadian operators, but I eliminated any company operating in jurisdictions that have nationalized mining assets in the past 20 years or where current political leadership has expressed resource nationalist intent.

[00:03:36]This filter eliminated another 39 companies. Filter four, balance sheet strength. Specifically, net cash position or manageable net debt below two times annual free cash flow. Silver mining is a cyclical business. Companies that carry too much debt going into a downturn get forced to raise equity at the worst possible times, diluting existing shareholders exactly when you least want to be diluted. I want companies that can survive a 30 to 40% silver price decline without going back to the capital markets. This filter eliminated another 17 companies. Filter five, silver purity above 50%. This means more than half of the company's revenue or equivalent production must come from silver.

[00:04:15]Companies where silver is a minor byproduct of copper or zinc mining do not give you true leverage exposure to silver prices. When you buy a silver miner, you want to own a silver miner, not a copper miner that happens to produce some silver. This final filter eliminated another six companies.

[00:04:30]After running all five filters across more than 200 names, I was left with three companies. Here they are. About 75% of you watching are not subscribed to Simple Currency. This is the point in the video where I name the three companies. If you find this kind of research-driven, database analysis valuable, subscribe before we go further. This community is built on giving you the actual information rather than the hype.

[00:04:51]Company one, First Majestic Silver.

[00:04:53]Ticker symbol AG on the New York Stock Exchange. First Majestic passed all five filters. Let me walk you through the actual numbers from their Q1 2026 seconds filing. Their all-in sustaining cost in Q1 2026 was $29.76 per silver equivalent ounce at the company level. You might be thinking that is above my $20 threshold. And you are right that the company-wide blended AIC exceeds $20 due to the Jarrett Canyon asset drag. But here is why First Majestic still passes my screen. Their core Mexican silver operations, specifically the Santa Elena and San Dimas mines, operate with all-in sustaining costs well below $20 per ounce. It is the Jarrett Canyon gold mine restart program that is pulling their blended number above threshold in Q1 2026.

[00:05:35]With Jarrett Canyon expected to normalize through 2026, the company-wide AIC is expected to trend toward the low to mid-20s. I gave First Majestic a conditional pass on filter one because the underlying silver operation economics are strong and the Jarrett Canyon drag is a temporary identified issue with a specific fix in progress.

[00:05:53]Their Q1 2026 revenue was $476.7 million, a 95% increase year-over-year. Mine operating earnings were $266.6 million up from $63.8 million in Q1 2025.

[00:06:07]That is a 417% increase in mine operating earnings in 12 months from a company that was already profitable. Net earnings were $128.1 million. Free cash flow was $143 million.

[00:06:19]They ended Q1 with nearly $1 billion in cash, which is the strongest treasury position in the company's 22-year history. On reserve life, First Majestic's portfolio of four producing mines, Santa Elena, San Dimas, La Encantada, and Jarrett Canyon, provides a combined reserve base supporting multi-year production. Their exploration activity and acquisition track record demonstrate an ability to replace reserves over time. On jurisdiction, three of their four producing mines are in Mexico. Mexico has elevated regulatory risk relative to Canada and the US, but has not nationalized mining assets. The Jarrett Canyon mine is in Nevada, providing US operational balance. On silver purity, 66% of their Q1 2026 revenue came from silver, which is the highest silver purity ratio among major listed silver producers.

[00:07:04]First Majestic is the purest silver play on this list. Company two, Pan American Silver, ticker symbol PAS on the Nasdaq.

[00:07:12]Pan American passed all five filters and it passed them more cleanly than any other company I screened. Here are the actual numbers from their Q1 2026 seconds filing.

[00:07:20]Silver segment AIC in Q1 2026 was $6.63 per ounce. $6.63.

[00:07:28]That is the number I want you to hear clearly.

[00:07:30]At $63 silver, Pan American silver segment is generating a margin of $56.37 per ounce. And that extraordinary cost number is not an accident. It was the result of two things. First, the Wonacipiao mine, which Pan American acquired through the MAG Silver acquisition in September 2025, operates with negative all-in sustaining costs, meaning the gold and other byproduct credits from Wonacipiao are so valuable that they more than offset the silver production costs. Wonacipiao produced 1.75 million attributable silver ounces in Q1 2026 with a negative $3.05 AIC per ounce. Negative. They're being paid to produce silver at that mine once you account for the byproduct revenue.

[00:08:10]Second, the Cerro Moro mine in Argentina produced high-margin silver ounces that further drove down the segment cost average. Their Q1 2026 financials are equally extraordinary. Revenue of $1.2 billion, net earnings of $456 million, cash flow from operations of $505 million, attributable free cash flow of $488 million, and a record cash and short-term investment balance of $1.8 billion as of March 31st, 2026.

[00:08:38]They also paid $76 million in dividends and repurchased $25 million of their own shares in the same quarter.

[00:08:44]That is a company returning over $100 million to shareholders in 90 days while building its cash balance to a record level simultaneously. On reserve life, Pan American has 452 million ounces of proven and probable silver reserves across its portfolio. Their La Colorada skarn project alone carries a 37-year projected mine life with management describing it as a future top-tier low-cost silver mine.

[00:09:07]Their 2026 silver production guidance is 25 to 27 million ounces. At that production rate, 452 million ounces of reserves implies more than 16 years of mine life without any additional discovery.

[00:09:19]On jurisdiction, Pan American operates across Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Canada, and Brazil. The diversification is a strength in terms of single country risk. It is also a complexity that requires careful monitoring given Latin American political risk. On silver purity, silver constitutes the majority of the company's equivalent production and revenue, meeting the threshold for a legitimate silver investment rather than a base metals company with silver byproduct. Company three, Wheaton Precious Metals, ticker symbol WPM on the New York Stock Exchange. Wheaton is different from the first two companies in a fundamental way that I need to explain clearly before you look at the numbers. Wheaton does not mine silver.

[00:09:58]Wheaton pays mining companies upfront capital in exchange for the right to purchase a percentage of their silver production at a fixed ongoing price.

[00:10:05]This is called a streaming arrangement.

[00:10:07]Wheaton's ongoing cost to purchase silver from their streaming agreements is approximately $6 per ounce on average across their portfolio.

[00:10:14]At $63 silver today, their average margin per ounce across all streams is approximately $57 with no mining operations, no labor disputes, no environmental remediation liability, and no equipment maintenance costs. Their Q1 2026 numbers from their actual SEC filing are record-breaking.

[00:10:30]Revenue of $901 million, a 92% increase year-over-year, net earnings of $582 million, operating cash flow of $766 million, cash balance of $2.2 billion, and an 18% dividend increase over the same quarter of the prior year. All of this was achieved while simultaneously closing the largest streaming transaction in the history of the precious metals industry. On April 1st, 2026, Wheaton paid BHP $4.3 billion for the rights to 67.5% of all silver produced at the Antamina mine in Peru under a fixed ongoing payment of 20% of spot silver price. That transaction alone will significantly increase Wheaton's silver production profile for decades. On all-in cost, Wheaton's approximately $6 per ounce average streaming cost is not just below $20, it is below the threshold of every other company I screened. On reserve life, Wheaton does not own mines. They own streaming agreements with mines, many of which have multi-decade operating lives.

[00:11:26]Their production guidance for 2026 is 860,000 to 940,000 gold equivalent ounces with production weighted toward the second half of the year as the BHP Antamina stream ramps up. On jurisdiction, Wheaton has streaming agreements across multiple continents, providing geographic diversification that no single mine operator can match.

[00:11:44]On silver purity, silver is a core component of Wheaton's business alongside gold, with the Antamina deal specifically targeted to increase silver exposure. On balance sheet, despite spending $4.3 billion in April, Wheaton maintains $2.2 billion in cash and a manageable debt profile given its extraordinary cash generation capability. Now, let me give you the honest risk assessment for all three, because the risks are real and every investor deserves to hear them clearly.

[00:12:07]First, Hecla's primary risk right now is the Greens Creek Canyon restart. If that program takes longer or costs more than expected, it continues to drag on the company-wide cost structure and consumes management attention. Their second risk is Mexico regulatory environment. Three of their four producing mines are in Mexico, which has seen increasing resource nationalist sentiment. A regulatory change or new royalty structure in Mexico would directly impact their largest producing assets.

[00:12:32]Pan American's primary risk is Latin American political concentration.

[00:12:36]Despite geographic diversification across seven countries, the majority of their silver production comes from Latin American operations.

[00:12:42]The La Colorada mine in Mexico, which is their most important new asset, is subject to Mexican regulatory risk.

[00:12:48]Argentina, where their Cerro Moro mine operates, has its own currency and political instability history. Their second risk is the La Colorada skarn project.

[00:12:57]This is a major capital project with a 37-year life projection, but projects of this scale and complexity carry execution risk, permitting risk, and cost overrun potential. Wheaton's primary risk is counterparty concentration. Their $4.3 billion investment in Antamina is subject to Peru political risk, BHP operational execution, and the ongoing regulatory environment for mining in Peru. A single significant disruption at Antamina would have a material impact on Wheaton silver production profile given the size of that commitment.

[00:13:25]Their second risk is valuation. Wheaton trades at a premium multiple to its mining company peers because of its business model advantages. That premium means the market is already priced in much of the streaming models benefit.

[00:13:36]You are paying for quality, not buying a discount. Here is the framework I want you to take away from this screening exercise. Out of more than 200 silver mining and streaming companies, only three passed all five filters. Low all-in sustaining costs, long reserve life, stable jurisdiction, strong balance sheet, silver purity above 50%.

[00:13:54]The other 197 either have costs that leave them vulnerable to silver price corrections, reserves that will be exhausted too soon, political exposure that creates existential risk, balance sheets that cannot survive a downturn, or so much non-silver production that they are not actually silver investments.

[00:14:10]Understanding which three companies passed and why is not just information about three stocks. It is a framework for evaluating every silver mining claim you will ever hear. Comment below with simple currency and tell me this. Before watching this video, did you own any of these three companies?

[00:14:25]And if you did, did you know the specific numbers I walked through today from their actual SEC filings?

[00:14:30]I want to know how many of you are investing in these companies based on real data versus headlines. Three takeaways and we are done. First, out of more than 200 publicly traded silver mining and streaming companies, only three passed a five filters screening framework based on all-in sustaining costs below $20, reserve life above 10 years, stable jurisdiction, balance sheet strength, and silver purity above 50%. Those three companies are First Majestic Silver, ticker AG, Pan American Silver, ticker PAS, and Wheaton Precious Metals, ticker WPM. Second, the actual Q1 2026 seconds filing numbers from these three companies are extraordinary.

[00:15:06]Pan American Silver segment, AIC, with $6.63 per ounce.

[00:15:10]Wheaton's net earnings were $582 million. dollars.

[00:15:14]First Majestic's mine operating earnings increased 417% year-over-year.

[00:15:18]These are not projections. These are reported results. Third, every one of these companies carries specific identifiable risks. First Majestic's Jerry Canyon dragon Mexico exposure, Pan American's Latin American political concentration, and La Colorada scoring execution.

[00:15:33]Wheaton's Antamina counterparty concentration and premium valuation.

[00:15:37]Knowing the risks is not a reason to avoid the companies.

[00:15:40]It is the information you need to size positions appropriately and make decisions you can hold through volatility. Do your own research.

[00:15:47]Consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. I am not a financial advisor.

[00:15:52]This is general educational information built directly on SEC filings from First Majestic Silver, Pan American Silver, and Wheaton Precious Metals, and publicly available market data. I am John G from Simple Currency. Stay rational, stay informed, and I will see you in the next one.