Best Silver Stocks of 2018 on the TSX

Like its counterpart gold, silver has seen rocky price action throughout 2018.

However, despite those struggles, some silver companies still managed to make progress and expand the resource potential of their assets. As the year comes to a close, the Investing News Network has rounded up the best silver stocks on the TSX by share price performance so far this year.

All year-to-date and share price information was obtained on December 10, 2018 from TradingView. All companies listed had market caps above C$50 million at that time.

1. SSR Mining (TSX:SSRM,NASDAQ:SSRM)

Year-to-date gain: 32.97 percent; share price: C$14.72

Formerly known as Silver Standard Resources, SSR Mining is based in Vancouver and has been operating for over 70 years. With a focus on the operation, development, exploration and acquisition of precious metals projects, SSR has three production operations, two development operations and four exploration assets throughout North, South and Latin America.

After seeing gradual yet consistent upward momentum through the first half of the year, SSR’s share price took a heavy hit in August shortly after the company announced its Q2 financial results. However, SSR made a comeback in October with the release of its Q3 production results, which sent its share price soaring from C$12.33 to C$13.77 in the 24 hours following the news.

Milestones from the company in 2018 include December’s declaration of commercial production at the Chinchillas mine in Argentina. Chinchillas is a joint venture with Golden Arrow Resources (TSXV:GRG).

2. Maya Gold & Silver (TSX:MYA)

Year-to-date gain: 15.24 percent; share price: C$1.89

Maya Gold & Silver’s main goal is to generate growth and revenue through acquisition and exploration programs, with a specific focus on precious metals assets in Morocco. While the company has multiple projects in Morocco, including its Boumadine mine, Amizmiz property and Azegour mine, the company’s flagship project is its Zgounder silver mine.

The company has had a fairly up and down 2018 in terms of its share price, hitting highs of C$2.96 two separate times through the year and lows as far as C$1.70. The first high came 11 days after the company completed a private placement of C$28.3 million, while the recent drop came two weeks after the company announced its Q3 results.

Despite the decline, Maya said in its Q3 release that it is on track to start commercial production at Zgounder this month. “Even though we faced delays with the installation of the 56-kilometer-long power line required to reduce dependencies towards gasoline supply the overall timeline remains on track,” said President and CEO Noureddine Mokaddem.

3. Sierra Metals (TSX:SMT)

Year-to-date gain: 0.34 percent; share price: C$2.98

Once known as Dia Bras Exploration, Sierra Metals began exploration and development work in Mexico in 2003. The company has since expanded, and now has the Bolivar copper–zinc-silver mine and the Cusi silver-lead mines in Mexico under its belt, along with an 82-percent share of the Yauricocha silver-lead-zinc-copper-gold mine in Peru. The company also has ongoing exploration activity in both countries.

Another company with back-and-forth share price movement, Sierra saw some heavy fluctuations through 2018. On August 20, a week after announcing its Q2 financial results, company plunged by $0.30 only to skyrocket $0.71 two days later. The jump came a day before Sierra filed a NI 43-101 technical report for the preliminary economic assessment for its Bolivar mine in Mexico.

More recently, Sierra announced that its environmental impact assessment for an expansion of the tailings deposition at Yauricocha was not approved. The news came on December 5, and the company will have 15 business days to provide a re-evaluation to the authorities to initiate a review process.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.