The recent breakout in the gold price has been nothing short of monumental, gaining about 70 per cent since the beginning of 2023 to more than US$3,400 per ounce, driven by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, high consumer prices despite falling interest rates, as well as increasing political abrasiveness from the U.S., most recently spawning a series of tariffs that are radically restructuring global trade.
This content has been prepared as part of a partnership with Desert Gold Ventures Inc. and White Gold Corp., and is intended for informational purposes only.
However, stocks tracking gold miners with attractive projects haven’t been so quick to react to their increasingly pricey target commodity, often meeting value-added news with stagnant or falling share prices, indicating that fundamentals are likely taking a back seat to macroeconomic concerns, coupled with risk aversion associated with the long-term, capital-intensive task of discovering a gold resource and ushering it to production.
Under these conditions, investors can gain an edge by identifying breakout gold stocks that have recently captured the market’s attention, whose underlying assets and operations substantiate continued momentum over the years to come.
Here are two standout candidates with established resources and market capitalizations under C$100 million worth weighing in on, each of which joined Stockhouse to discuss recent news over the past week.
Desert Gold Ventures
Our first breakout gold stock, Desert Gold Ventures, market capitalization C$19.36 million, is advancing two flagship projects in Africa.
The 440-square-kilometre SMSZ project in Mali is estimated to contain 310,300 ounces of gold measured and indicated and 769,200 ounces inferred, representing US$3.7 billion in the ground. A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) released in August details an after-tax net present value of US$54 million at US$3,366 per ounce of gold, accounting for less than 10 per cent of SMSZ’s total resource.
The newly optioned 297-square-kilometre Tiegba project in Cote d’Ivoire lies along the Tehini Shear zone, which is associated with significant gold anomalies, and counts numerous multi-million-ounce deposits as its neighbors, including properties owned by Allied Gold and Perseus Mining. Initial soil sampling identified a 4.2 km x 2.1 km gold-in-soil anomaly on Tiegba yielding up to 940 parts per billion gold that remains to be drill tested, with less than 20 per cent of the license having undergone modern exploration.
Given how much operations have progressed over the past 18 months, it’s no surprise that Desert Gold stock (TSXV:DAU) has followed suit, adding about 87.5 per cent to date, propelled by:
- The official PEA kick-off in February 2024.
- Strategic drilling on SMSZ in April and May.
- Robust gold assays published in August and November.
- Newly discovered historical drilling representing 479,000 ounces of gold inferred announced in February 2025.
These milestones lead us back to the aforementioned PEA and the prospective path it paves for future development, with more than 20 gold zones on SMSZ meriting follow-up exploration, granting a management team with more than 10 years active in West African mining a long growth runway to improve project economics and foster shareholder value.
Should gold market strength carry on unabated, look for Desert Gold to continue advancing its portfolio’s untapped upside, making an ever stronger case for major miners and development partners to get their earn-in proposals ready.
Jared Scharf, Desert Gold Ventures’ president and chief executive officer (CEO), spoke with Lyndsay Malchuk about the SMSZ project’s new PEA. Watch the interview here.
White Gold
Our second breakout gold stock, White Gold, market capitalization C$92.90 million, owns a massive portfolio spanning 21 properties and 3,051 square-kilometres in the Yukon highlighted by its White Gold project. The flagship project hosts four near-surface deposits combining for an August 2025 estimate of 1,732,300 ounces of gold indicated and 1,265,900 ounces inferred, representing more than US$10.2 billion in the ground.
Regional exploration across the rest of the company’s land package has produced numerous gold and critical metals discoveries suggesting that the presence of nearby deposits is not a fluke. Neighbors include Newmont’s Coffee project (2.17 million ounces of gold measured and indicated and 230,000 ounces inferred) and Western Copper and Gold’s Casino project (14.8 million ounces of gold and 7.6 billion pounds of copper measured and indicated and 6.3 million ounces of gold and 3.1 billion pounds of copper inferred).
Overseen by a leadership team that has taken deposits of a similar size into production before, White Gold has delivered more progress over the past year than most junior miners achieve in their lifetimes. Here’s a timeline:
- Record soil sample grades from the 2024 program on the QV property announced in August 2024.
- A November increase in mineral resources at the White Gold project to 1.2 million ounces indicated and 1.1 million ounces inferred.
- C$5.5 million successfully raised in January 2025, fully funding exploration for the year.
- A broad near-surface gold structure discovered while drilling on the QV property’s Chris Creek target in February.
- Phase-I exploration for critical metals launched in July backed by targets with favourable geophysical and geochemical signatures.
- Ongoing phase-II exploration, kicked off in early August, focused on expanding resources and technical understanding at the White Gold project.
- Only a few weeks later, the company increased its flagship project’s indicated resources by 44 per cent and inferred resources by 13.4 per cent, topping off its value-accretive year with a bang.
Right on cue, fueled by gold’s recent resiliency, White Gold stock (TSXV:WGO) has drifted higher, adding 72.22 per cent year-over-year, well ahead of the yellow metal’s 32.96 per cent effort, substantiating the notion that the broader market is aligned with the company’s value proposition.
With drilling and sampling of underexplored mineralized zones at the White Gold project in 2025 positioning the stock for near-term momentum and ongoing work towards a PEA promising greater visibility into the project’s multi-billion-dollar potential, evidence abounds in support of optimism about what lies beneath the company’s mostly contiguous land package.
David D’Onofrio, White Gold’s CEO, spoke with Lyndsay Malchuk about the new resource estimate. Watch the interview here.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week for a new edition of Weekly Market Movers, where I delve into companies that sat down with Stockhouse for an interview over the past week. Here’s the most recent article, in case you missed it.
Join the discussion: Find out what investors are saying about these breakout junior gold stocks on the Desert Gold Ventures Inc. and White Gold Corp. Bullboards and check out the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
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