Analyst Cuts Price Targets For These Gold Stocks, Names Agnico Eagle Top Pick

Second-quarter earnings season was mostly bad news for North American precious metal miners. Several producers lowered their guidance for the second half of the year, and Bank of America analyst Lawson Winder lowered his price target for a handful of gold and silver miners on Monday.

Updated Targets: Winder made the following changes to gold and silver stocks under his coverage:

• Centerra Gold Inc. CGAU, reiterated Underperform rating, price target cut from $6.30 to $5.60.
• Pan American Silver Corp. PAAS, reiterated Buy rating, price target cut from $25 to $22.
• Barrick Gold Corp GOLD, reiterated Buy rating, price target cut from $27.25 to $27.

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Bank of America projects gold prices will average $1,938 per ounce in 2022 and $2,049/oz in 2023. The firm is projecting silver prices of $21.04/oz in 2022 and $19.51/oz in 2022.

Winder said stagflation could push gold and prices even higher than his current projections.

Top Pick: He named Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd AEM his top stock pick in the precious metal mining group.

"AEM is a stand-out with unchanged 2022 production and cost guidance (unlike many peers), is delivering well on Kirkland Lake merger synergies, and a focus on increasing reserve life by way of exploration," Winder said.

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Gold has likely been a disappointment for most investors in 2022 up to this point. Despite inflation at multi-decade highs, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD is down 2.7% year-to-date.

Benzinga's Take: Gold certainly hasn't been the classic inflation hedge investors have been looking for in 2022. In fact, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF GDX has even underperformed the S&P 500 as a whole year-to-date, falling 16.6%.