Orla Mining (ORLA): Best Gold Stock for 2026?

Even after selling Kinross Gold (KGC) for a nearly 140% gain in my Zen Investor portfolio, I commented that we probably should still have at least 1 gold mining position on hand. That’s because most experts believe there will be a 10-20% increase in gold prices in 2026...which likely translates to 30 to 60% returns for gold miners.

Enter Orla Mining (ORLA) as my top gold pick which I think will be at the high end of those returns. 

Remember that the cost of extracting gold doesn’t really increase that much year to year. Thus, as prices rally it really is just profit straight to the bottom line which is what propels the share price higher. 

This time around I wanted a slightly more speculative play than we had in KGC which is a large cap industry leader. That pointed to 2 possible choices in the small to mid cap space; CGAU and ORLA at 98.89 vs. 98.60 percentile respectively from the Zen Ratings analysis. 

However, I saw 2 reasons to make ORLA my top gold pick.

First, was the superior Financials rating in the top 6% versus top 19% for CGAU. This is truly a measure of operational efficiency of the management team. Which increases the odds of earnings beats in the future.

The quality of past earnings beats was my second and final determining factor. CGAU missed on 8 of the last 16 earnings reports while ORLA only faltered 2 times in that stretch. 50% miss rate is far too high and just have greater faith that ORLA will do better with the higher gold prices to churn out higher profits...and higher share prices.

Just a word of warning that gold will likely be more volatile in the year ahead given the gains already in hand. So we will need a bit more patience on this position than required for KGC which was a non-stop joy ride. 

Yet in the end I think we will be quite pleased that we dug up these mining shares to easily outperform the market in the year ahead. And any surge in gold prices above $5,000 will likely see ORLA shares doubling or more.  

What To Do Next?

Orla Mining (ORLA) is just one of 20 stellar stocks found in my Zen Investor portfolio.

Each stock was selected by harnessing the power of the Zen Ratings along with my 40+ years of successful investing experience. 

This dynamic combination has us pinpointing stocks with the unique opportunity to double or more in the next 1-2 years. 

If that appeals to you, then please click below to learn more about my investment process…and how to see my current top 20 stock recommendations. 

Discover the Zen Investor portfolio & Top 20 Stocks Now > 

Wishing you a world of investment success!

Steve Reitmeister…but everyone calls me Reity (pronounced “Righty”)

Editor of the Zen Investor

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