Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, gold and copper miner Northgate Minerals (AMEX: NXG) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Northgate's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Northgate facts

Headquarters (Founded)

Vancouver, Canada (1919)

Market Cap

$867.4 million

Industry

Oil and gas drilling

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$447.04 million

Management

CEO Kenneth Stowe (since 1999)

CFO Jon Douglas (since 2001)

Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)

0.4%

Cash/Debt

$168.17 million / $59.25 million

Competitors

Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM)

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 97% of the 1,651 members who have rated Northgate believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include Zegarelli2648 and Arizen.

This month, Zegarelli2648 listed several of Northgate's positives: "has known/potential reserves; safe political/financial country; decent capital; upward shift in gold price during volatile times. Investors looking for a bang."

Currently, Northgate even sports a particularly paltry PEG ratio of 0.5. That represents a clear discount to larger, more well-known miners like BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) (0.8), Newmont (1.6), and Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) (3.6).

In November, CAPS member Arizen expanded on the outperform case:

Northgate Minerals is the Rodney Dangerfield of gold mining stocks. It gets no respect. But soon Northgate will command it.

While many investors focus on near-term declines in gold production, the key here is recent Canadian approval of the development of huge gold deposits at a Northgate project called Young-Davidson in Ontario.

Production should start in the first half of 2012 and fully ramp up by 2014. This plus other projects could raise profits and make this stock double or more.

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