Silver and the rest of the precious metals have been fairly quiet over the last few months, but Hecla Mining has been able to make some gains.

One would expect this silver stock to at least remain flat or be confided to a trading range, following the pattern of its underlying commodity, silver.

Over the last 100 days or so, silver bullion prices have fallen about 10% and many silver stocks have followed suit, falling 10% or more in that period. However it would be good enough for Hecla to simply hold its stock price whilst silver fell, but Hecla stock has gone one step further and has increased by over 15% in the same period.

But this trend doesn’t just continue when silver prices are decreasing. When we see increases in silver prices, Hecla is quick to outperform the silver bullion by an order of magnitude. In the last 200 days, silver prices have increased by 16% but Hecla has powered ahead gaining a massive 65% in the same time frame. Similarly, over the last 300 days, Hecla shares have appreciated by 35% whilst silver bullion prices are up only 5%.

The fact that Hecla can still move higher when the going gets tough is a sign of what a quality silver stock this is. This adds to our confidence that Hecla will be one of the best performing junior silver producers as silver heads towards our target of $20 per ounce.

Hecla is not of course alone, there are more great silver stocks that should benefit from the bull market in silver prices. More silver stocks are documented in our silver prices portfolio.

Hecla Mining Company trades as HL on the New York Stock Exchange and currently has a market cap of just of one billion dollars.