People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

With this data we have come up with a new metric, watch interest, to inform investors what stocks their peers keep tabs on in each industry. In the case of the mining industry, watch interest is the percentage of people keeping an eye on mining stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. By looking at what stocks people are most interested in in an industry, you can get ahead of the curve by finding hot stocks that you might have otherwise overlooked. That's easy to do in the mining industry, as there are more than 150 publicly traded mining stocks. The industry has been going on all cylinders as demand around the world is picking up and shipping costs are at all-time lows.

The most-watched mining stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX) is above the rest in terms of watch interest and for good reason. As CAPS player bikesncats wrote last month:

One of the better commodity plays offered by its good management and great assets already developed as well as under development.

Here are the rest of the 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS ratings to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Watch Interest

1

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold

$52,150

****

11.1%

2

Taseko Mines (AMEX: TGB)

$869

*****

8.9%

3

Molycorp (NYSE: MCP)

$4,294

*

7.4%

4

Vale (Nasdaq: VALE)

$169,300

****

7.2%

5

Cameco (NYSE: CCJ)

$10,483

*****

6.8%

6

Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE: CLF)

$14,143

****

6.6%

7

Southern Copper (NYSE: SCCO)

$30,600

****

6.3%

8

Denison Mines (AMEX: DNN)

$773

*****

4.8%

9

BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP)

$241,328

****

4.4%

10

Rare Element Resources (AMEX: REE)

$7,042

*

4.1%

11

Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO)

$132,824

****

3.0%

12

Uranium Resources (Nasdaq: URRE)

$159

***

2.9%

13

Avalon Rare Metals (AMEX: AVL)

$578

**

2.5%

14

Teck Resources (NYSE: TCK)

$29,208

****

2.3%

15

Stillwater Mining (NYSE: SWC)

$1,576

****

2.1%

Sources: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold or are watching an up-and-comer like Taseko Mines, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.