'The riskiest assets on the planet' - Rick Rule on when to bet on gold stocks

While precious metal prices have been relatively high this year, it could be too early to leap into junior gold stocks, said Rick Rule, president and CEO of Rule Investment Media.

On Friday Rule recorded Kitco Roundtable with Kitco correspodent Paul Harris and mining audiences manager Michael McCrae.

Gold gained $150 in March — its best month since July 2020, noted Kitco's Anna Golubova. Analysts are seeing markets contradicting the Fed's messaging, and gold may have lots more upside, including testing and breaking record highs in April.

Gold stocks are catching up. The GDX, an index of gold companies, is up 18% for the month, but it is still significantly off its 52-week high.

"A move up may be right in terms of direction, but [investors] may be wrong in terms of timing," said Rule who likes the macro environment for gold but sees other factors weighing on the sector.

"When we are in a risk-off environment, the riskiest assets on the planet are non-producing exploration companies," noted Rick. "The gold price can go up, but the shares of companies that inconveniently happen to have not much gold will continue to go down."