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Hycroft Mining: A High-Risk Mining Play With a Huge Potential Payoff
Written by Nathan Reiff. Originally Published: 2/26/2026.
Key Points
- Hycroft Mining recently revealed a massive 55% increase in its measured and indicated mineral resources for silver and gold at its Nevada mine, sending shares upward by about a quarter.
- While the upgraded mineral resource estimate is very promising for the small mining firm, it still faces challenges, including a lack of revenue and profitability, cash flow concerns, and more.
- This makes Hycroft a highly risky play, but one that may appeal to investors believing the company can successfully extract some $50 billion in mineral reserves.
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The mining industry is dominated by major players with the capital and geographic reach to produce on a massive scale. Still, despite a recent cooling of the red-hot silver and gold rally, a substantial rise in precious-metal prices over recent months may have opened opportunities for smaller companies as well.
One such firm is Hycroft Mining PLC (NASDAQ: HYMC). With a market capitalization of about $3.5 billion, Hycroft is only a fraction of the size of $100-billion-plus rivals like Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (NYSE: AEM) and Newmont Corp. (NYSE: NEM). A potential catalyst for the company is a recent technical report—an updated mineral resource estimate (MRE)—that indicates Hycroft's Nevada operations may contain significantly more gold and silver than previously estimated.
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Despite the encouraging MRE, investors should remain cautious. Concerns include the firm's revenue, its production profile, and its profitability. That combination makes Hycroft a high-risk mining play, though one that could pay off substantially if the company executes.
Digging Into Hycroft's Updated MRE
From a bullish perspective, Hycroft's updated MRE shows roughly 55% growth in measured and indicated mineral resources for both gold and silver at its Nevada mine. The report also increases inferred resources—estimates with lower confidence—by about 50% for gold and 38% for silver. Based on current prices, the updated footprint could represent $50 billion or more in in-ground metal value.
How valuable a mine is depends not only on contained ounces but on recoverability and costs. The MRE shows about 83% of the gold and 78% of the silver are recoverable using conventional processing methods—favorable compared with many peers—suggesting a reasonably strong extraction profile.
Investors reacted to the mid-February 2026 report. HYMC shares rose roughly 24% in the days after the announcement.
Reasons for Caution Remain
Even if Hycroft sits on substantial, reasonably recoverable resources, extracting them will take time and capital. Recoverable ounces do not automatically translate into cheap or quick production; permitting, infrastructure, and scale-up typically require years and significant investment.
Capital is the immediate constraint. Hycroft remains unprofitable, reporting earnings per share of -$0.22 in the latest quarter (slightly better than analysts had expected). Its limited revenue reflects a focus on exploration rather than commercial production—meaning the company still has considerable work before it can scale operations to realize the value suggested by the MRE.
Hycroft is also exposed to metal-price volatility. Like most single-asset miners, its fortunes are closely tied to gold and silver prices, which could correct after months of strong gains. And without diversified operations across regions, Hycroft faces concentrated operational risk if its Nevada site encounters permitting, environmental, or technical setbacks.
A Play for Those With Tolerance for Risk
That said, Hycroft's enlarged resource base may attract investors willing to accept the risks. Notably, major mining investor Eric Sprott—already a significant shareholder—bought $6.3 million of HYMC shares in late February after the MRE was released.
The company also raised about $235 million in the most recent quarter through public equity offerings, a private placement, and other measures, giving it additional runway to advance development. But with weak cash flow and continuing losses, Hycroft faces a race to convert resources into steady production and positive cash flow. The metals appear to be there—the key question is how efficiently the company can extract them and turn them into profitable revenue.
Vertiv's $15 Billion Backlog Is the Loudest AI Signal in 2026
By Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Posted: 2/18/2026.
Key Points
- The company reported a historic surge in its order backlog that provides exceptional visibility into revenue growth for multiple future years.
- Strategic acquisitions and partnerships with leading chip manufacturers have solidified a dominant position in the liquid cooling market.
- Recent government policy exemptions for large data centers effectively create a regulatory advantage that incentivizes domestic expansion.
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For the past two years, the artificial intelligence (AI) investment narrative has focused almost exclusively on silicon. Investors constantly asked, "Who makes the chips?" and the answer was usually NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA). However, as 2026 unfolds, the bottleneck in the AI revolution is shifting. It is no longer just about acquiring processors; it is about the physics of keeping them running.
As AI data centers grow larger and chips run hotter, the primary constraints have moved to power delivery and thermal management. This shift has crowned Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE: VRT) the "utility company" of the AI era.
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Without Vertiv's high-density cooling and power systems, the latest generation of high-performance chips cannot function at scale.
Following a massive fourth-quarter earnings report that sent shares near all-time highs of roughly $243, Vertiv has shown it is not just a manufacturing stock but a structural necessity for the digital economy.
A $15 Billion Signal for Future Growth
On Feb. 11, 2026, Vertiv delivered what Wall Street calls a beat-and-raise quarter, fundamentally resetting expectations for the company's growth trajectory. The numbers tell a story of accelerating demand that is effectively decoupling from broader, slower-moving industrial trends.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Vertiv reported net sales of $2.88 billion, an organic increase of 19% from the same period a year earlier. Profitability was even more impressive, with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.36, beating the analyst consensus of $1.29. The company also generated $910 million in adjusted free cash flow, giving it ample resources to reinvest in factories and the supply chain.
The Mic Drop Metric: A $15 Billion Backlog Matters
While revenue growth was strong, the standout metric was the order backlog. Vertiv ended 2025 with a backlog of $15 billion, a staggering 109% increase versus the prior year. This figure is critical because it represents contractually secured demand.
Unlike consumer-tech companies that rely on quarterly sales trends, a backlog of this magnitude means a substantial portion of Vertiv's 2026 and 2027 revenue is already locked in. That level of visibility is rare in the industrial sector. Management issued bullish guidance for full-year 2026, projecting revenue between $13.25 billion and $13.75 billion, with adjusted EPS expected to rise to $5.97–$6.07. This roughly 43% projected earnings increase effectively pulls the company's long-term financial targets forward by nearly two years.
Engineering the Moat: How Vertiv Protects Its Lead
The driving force behind Vertiv's backlog is a fundamental problem with physics: air is no longer enough. Traditional data centers cool servers by blowing cold air through racks. Modern AI clusters, including those using NVIDIA's Blackwell chips, are pushing power densities to 100 kilowatts (kW) per rack and beyond. At those levels, air simply cannot move heat fast enough to prevent hardware failure.
Vertiv has established itself as the market leader in the transition to liquid cooling, including direct-to-chip technology where fluid is pumped through metal plates attached directly to GPUs. This technical moat protects Vertiv from commodity competitors that lack the engineering pedigree to manage high-pressure fluid loops inside expensive server racks.
To deepen that moat, Vertiv completed the $1 billion acquisition of PurgeRite in December 2025. The deal represents a classic razor-and-blade strategy: Vertiv sells the hardware (cooling units) and PurgeRite supplies the specialized services required to flush, filter, and maintain the system's complex fluid chemistry. By owning the service layer, Vertiv creates a high-margin, recurring revenue stream that lasts for the life of the data center.
Additionally, the company is collaborating with NVIDIA on an 800-volt DC power architecture scheduled for the second half of 2026. This product launch is timed to coincide with NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin platform. By integrating its power systems into the blueprints for future AI factories, Vertiv positions itself as the default infrastructure partner for the world's largest technology companies.
Why Trade Wars Won't Stop the Build-Out
Investors have rightly expressed concern about the new 25% Section 232 tariffs on semiconductors, imposed in January 2026. Typically, trade disputes raise costs and dampen demand. However, Vertiv benefits from a regulatory nuance that many analysts initially overlooked.
The presidential proclamation imposing these tariffs includes a key exemption: semiconductor imports destined for U.S. data centers with loads greater than 100 megawatts (MW) are exempt from the duty. That policy actively incentivizes hyperscalers to build their massive AI clusters in the United States. Since the Americas region is Vertiv's strongest market—posting 50% sales growth in Q4—this exemption effectively creates a regulatory moat around its core customer base and shields them from cost inflation.
Why Vertiv Commands a Higher Multiple
Vertiv's strength is even clearer when compared with peers such as Eaton (NYSE: ETN). Eaton is a high-quality industrial company, but it recently missed revenue estimates due to exposure to cyclical sectors like automotive and aerospace. Vertiv, by contrast, is a pure play on data centers, capturing the full velocity of the AI infrastructure boom without the drag of slower-growing legacy industries.
Trading at roughly 40 times forward earnings, Vertiv commands a premium. Context matters: when adjusting for growth using the PEG ratio (price/earnings-to-growth), the stock looks fairly valued. With earnings projected to grow about 43% in 2026, the PEG sits near 1.0, suggesting investors are paying a reasonable price for elite growth. Additionally, S&P Global Ratings recently upgraded Vertiv to investment grade (BBB-), a change that lowers the company's cost of capital and broadens its appeal to institutional investors.
The Toll Booth for the AI Age
Vertiv has effectively graduated from a cyclical industrial manufacturer to a secular growth compounder. The shift in the AI bottleneck from silicon availability to physical infrastructure availability has placed the company in an enviable position. With a $15 billion backlog, a protected domestic market, and strategic strength in liquid cooling and high-voltage power, Vertiv has become the toll booth for the AI supercycle.
Customer concentration among the Magnificent Seven remains a risk to monitor, but the company's execution suggests that as long as the arms race for compute power continues, Vertiv will be the one keeping the lights on and the temperatures down.
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