Hycroft Mining (HYMC) Stock Surges on Record Vortex Silver Grades: Latest News, Forecasts, and What to Watch on Dec. 23, 2025

Dec. 23, 2025 — Hycroft Mining Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: HYMC) is back in the spotlight after a sharp move higher tied to fresh drill results at the company’s Hycroft Mine in Nevada. Shares closed up 49.33% on Monday, Dec. 22 at $24.52, following a company update that delivered the highest silver grades reported so far from the Vortex discovery. ^[1]

The rally has quickly turned HYMC into a momentum name again, but the story under the price action is more than a single headline: high-grade exploration success, a 2025 balance-sheet overhaul that left the company debt-free, and a precious-metals tape that’s encouraging investors to revisit developers that can potentially graduate into producers.

Why HYMC stock is moving: the Vortex drill results

Hycroft’s latest catalyst is a Dec. 22 press release detailing new intercepts from the 2025–2026 Exploration Drill Program at the Vortex zone. The company said the new data confirms continuity of the high-grade silver mineralization and expands the Vortex footprint, while leaving the system “open in all directions and at depth.” ^[2]

The market reaction was immediate. HYMC traded from an open near $18.75 to an intraday high of $24.80 on Dec. 22 before closing at $24.52, according to a report carried by Nasdaq/RTTNews. ^[3]

The numbers investors are focused on

For exploration stories, details matter—especially grade and continuity.

Hycroft highlighted results from Hole H25D-6072, reporting:

26.4 meters at 565.31 g/t silver (Ag) and 0.46 g/t gold (Au)
including 6.9 meters at 802.96 g/t Ag and 0.62 g/t Au
and “multiple intercepts” ranging from 960 g/t to 1545 g/t Ag ^[4]

(“g/t” means grams per metric tonne; these are high silver grades by most open-pit resource standards.)

The company also tied these results to the prior headline from Dec. 15, when it reported Hole H25D-6070 at:

30.8 meters at 438.58 g/t Ag and 0.41 g/t Au
including 6.1 meters at 739.58 g/t Ag and 0.21 g/t Au ^[5]

Beyond the raw grades, Hycroft emphasized geometry: the company said Vortex expanded roughly 70 meters to the northwest and about 90 meters down-dip to the west based on results from holes 6070 and 6072. ^[6]

What Hycroft said about Vortex and Brimstone

The Dec. 15 update provides more color on what’s coming next—and why investors are treating the current drill campaign as more than incremental. Hycroft said drilling is underway on the high-grade silver systems at both Brimstone and Vortex, and it provided early tallies for the current program:

Vortex: four holes totaling ~1,550 meters completed
Brimstone: six holes totaling ~3,320 meters completed, including two holes in a potential feeder system previously discussed by the company ^[7]

Hycroft also said assays for the feeder-system holes were pending, with results expected “very early in the new year.” ^[8]

Big picture: how large is Hycroft’s resource base?

Hycroft describes the Hycroft Mine as one of the world’s larger precious-metals deposits, and its December 2025 investor presentation provides a resource snapshot attributed to a Technical Report Summary dated March 27, 2023.

The presentation lists:

Measured & Indicated (M&I) gold resources:10.6 million ounces
Inferred gold resources:3.4 million ounces
M&I silver resources:361 million ounces
Inferred silver resources:96 million ounces ^[9]

That scale is a big reason HYMC can trade like a long-duration option on metals prices and metallurgy—especially when drill results suggest meaningful high-grade zones within (or adjacent to) a much larger resource envelope.

2025’s other major driver: HYMC is now debt-free

Exploration success gets attention, but HYMC’s 2025 reset is what made the current drill story easier for the market to “believe.” In its Oct. 28 corporate update (filed alongside its Q3 2025 10‑Q), Hycroft said it raised $235 million in net cash proceeds through public equity offerings, a private placement, warrant exercises, and at-the-market sales—then prepaid and eliminated approximately $136 million of total indebtedness, leaving the company debt free. ^[10]

In a separate Oct. 16 announcement, Hycroft provided more detail on the debt cleanup: the company said it made payments totaling $125.5 million on Oct. 15 to extinguish remaining debt, including repurchasing subordinated notes at a 9% discount to face value. ^[11]

Hycroft’s December 2025 investor deck reinforces the cash narrative, listing approximately US$175 million cash and “debt free” status (as of Dec. 12, 2025) as a key investment highlight. ^[12]

The financing that set the stage

The balance sheet shift didn’t happen by accident. On Oct. 9, Hycroft announced the pricing of a public underwritten offering of 23,076,924 shares at $6.50 per share (gross proceeds expected around $150 million), plus an underwriters’ option for an additional 3,295,076 shares. ^[13]

The result: more dilution, yes—but also substantially more runway to drill, advance technical studies, and pursue a credible path toward a development decision.

Processing plan: sulfide milling studies and a possible heap-leach restart

Hycroft has long been framed as a “metallurgy and execution” story as much as a resource story. In its Oct. 28 update, the company said it continued metallurgical and engineering work required to design a sulfide milling operation, and noted test programs showing higher gold and silver recoveries relative to its March 2023 technical report. ^[14]

The same update also stated Hycroft is evaluating the re-start of heap leaching “within the permitted plan,” citing strong gold and silver prices. ^[15]

That matters because any near-term production pathway—especially one leveraging existing infrastructure—can change how the market thinks about timeline risk.

AMC steps back, Sprott steps in: a notable shareholder shift

Another December development that investors continue to discuss is the changing mix of high-profile holders.

On Dec. 5, AMC Entertainment announced it transferred the majority of its HYMC investment to Sprott Mining (a private Canadian corporation owned by Eric Sprott). AMC said it sold about 2.34 million shares plus warrants for roughly 1.34 million shares, for net consideration of about $24.1 million, while retaining more than 1.0 million warrants and about 64,000 HYMC shares. ^[16]

Separately, an SEC Form 4 filing shows Eric Sprott (via an entity) purchased 7,690,000 HYMC shares at $6.50 on Oct. 14, 2025. ^[17]

HYMC stock performance: volatility is the feature, not the bug

As of the latest pricing data available today, HYMC is quoted around $24.52.

Other market data sources show just how extreme the move has been in a short window. MarketWatch lists HYMC’s 52‑week range as $1.99 to $26.25. ^[18]

A technical commentary site tracking the move noted the stock rose 117% over the past two weeks, with exceptionally wide daily swings during the surge. ^[19]

Meanwhile, Simply Wall St frames Hycroft as a pre‑revenue explorer, noting that traditional profitability metrics don’t apply cleanly and highlighting valuation measures such as price-to-book that can look elevated during momentum phases. ^[20]

Forecasts and analyst outlook: thin coverage, big numbers

Forecasting HYMC is tricky because coverage is limited and the company is still in the exploration-to-development transition. That’s showing up in the “consensus” data.

MarketWatch lists HYMC with an average recommendation of Hold, an average target price of $130.00, and one rating (as displayed on its analyst estimates page). ^[21]

MarketBeat, by contrast, reports HYMC with a consensus rating of “Sell” and points to a mix of recent commentary (including a “hold” change from one research label and a “sell” reaffirmation from another). ^[22]

The key takeaway for investors reading forecasts today: when the number of active analysts is extremely small, “average target prices” can be more noise than signal. HYMC’s price is likely to continue trading primarily on catalysts—drill results, metallurgy milestones, and financing/strategic updates—rather than incremental tweaks to quarterly estimates.

How the latest media analysis explains the spike

Mainstream market coverage has largely pinned the Dec. 22 surge on the Vortex drill results and the implied upside to the scale of the high-grade system. One widely circulated analysis framed the move as a reassessment of Vortex’s potential and quoted CEO Diane Garrett characterizing the company as entering a “pivotal growth phase.” ^[23]

A separate market report emphasized the magnitude of the one-day stock move and tied it directly to the high-grade intercepts reported from Vortex. ^[24]

What to watch next for HYMC

Several near-term items are likely to drive the next leg of trading—up or down:

More assay results from the 2025–2026 program, including pending Brimstone holes (with the company expecting some results early in the new year). ^[25]
Updated technical work on sulfide processing (milling flow sheet, recoveries, engineering progress). ^[26]
Any decision on restarting heap leaching under the permitted plan, which could reshape the timeline narrative. ^[27]
Further funding, partnerships, or strategic moves that either accelerate development—or dilute shareholders further.

Bottom line

Hycroft Mining’s December rally is being driven by a classic mining-market cocktail: spectacular high-grade drill results, a newly strengthened debt-free balance sheet, and a broader precious-metals environment that has investors willing to pay for long-duration optionality.

That said, HYMC remains a high-volatility development story. In plain terms: the upside case rests on converting exploration success and metallurgical progress into a fundable mine plan—while the downside case is the familiar trio of delays, dilution, and commodity-price swings.