Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, silver royalty holding company Silver Wheaton
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Silver Wheaton's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Silver Wheaton facts
| Headquarters | Vancouver, Canada |
| Market Cap | $15.1 billion |
| Industry | Precious metals and minerals |
| Trailing-12-Month Revenue | $364.33 million |
| Management | CEO Peter Barnes (since 2006) CFO Gary Brown (since 2008) |
| Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years) | 8.2% |
| Cash/Debt | $255.19 million / $114.3 million |
| Competitors |
Coeur d'Alene Mines |
Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 95% of the 2,317 members who have rated Silver Wheaton believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include MajorBob04 and All-Star SaintCroix, who is ranked in the top 2% of our community.
Just over a month ago, MajorBob04 touched on Silver Wheaton's shiny fundamentals:
Long term contracts to buy silver at prices well below market. Low SG&A, good FCF. Will continue to do well if silver stays at current prices and will do extremely well if the price goes up as expected.
In fact, Silver Wheaton boasts a whopping three-year average operating margin of 51.2%. That's substantially higher than that of other silver plays, including Hecla Mining
CAPS All-Star SaintCroix expands on the outperform argument:
The cost of the silver last year? $4 an ounce. This year? $4 an ounce. They have a long-term option to buy silver at that price. When I say "long-term," I mean 25 year contracts. In other cases, 10-year contracts. In others, for the life of the mine.
They have 15 such contracts in place with various mine operators, in politically stable regions (i.e. not China).
That's the story for this company. The macro story for silver is even more interesting.
Demand has gone up and up and up. Silver is the best conductor of electricity in the world. It's the best reflector of light. Silver is used in computers, in lasers, in electronics, in photography. And yet the price has stayed cheap. It's 50 times cheaper than gold. And yet there is less silver bullion in the world than gold bullion.
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