Barrick Gold Corp is back on top as Canada’s best-performing stock and the world’s most valuable gold company

Veladero, one of the largest gold mines in Argentina, produced 722,000 ounces of the precious metal last year. (Image courtesy of Barrick Latin America)

Barrick Gold Corp. has surged to become Canada’s best-performing stock as a two-month rally in the precious metal gives added lift to the company’s turnaround efforts.

Barrick’s shares are up 29 per cent this year in Toronto, making it the best-performing stock on the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index. It’s also overtaken its two biggest competitors, Goldcorp Inc. and Newmont Mining Corp., in market capitalization, allowing it to reclaim the title of the world’s most valuable gold company.

Barrick pulled some rabbits out of a hat

“Guys like me, on the street, we had given Goldcorp the crown in the senior sector,” Barry Allan, an analyst with Mackie Research Capital Corp., said by phone from Toronto. “And Barrick actually pulled some rabbits out of a hat. Not enough to get them to nirvana but they were seriously making some hard moves and some hard calls.”

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