TMC the metals company Inc. (NASDAQ: TMC) Stock: 2025 Deep‑Sea Mining Rally, Latest News, Forecasts and Outlook (11 December 2025)

Key takeaways

TMC stock is up several hundred percent over the past year, but has pulled back sharply from October’s highs above $11 and now trades just under $7, with a market cap of roughly $3 billion. ^[1]
The company remains pre‑revenue, loss‑making and permit‑dependent, with negative shareholders’ equity despite a cash balance of about $116 million at the end of Q3 2025. ^[2]
Analyst and model forecasts diverge widely: some data providers show a “Strong Buy” rating and 12‑month targets around $8.8, while others call TMC a short‑term “Sell candidate” and flag overvaluation and financial risk. ^[3]

TMC stock today: price and performance snapshot

As of the trading session on 11 December 2025, TMC the metals company Inc. (NASDAQ: TMC) is changing hands at about $6.98 per share, down from recent levels above $8 and well below its 52‑week peak. ^[4]

Key trading metrics:

Price (intraday): $6.98
Previous close: $6.85
Day range: $6.77 – $7.09
52‑week range: $0.72 – $11.35 ^[5]
Market cap: approximately $2.8–3.2 billion, depending on the data provider and timestamp. ^[6]

Over the past year, TMC has behaved less like a sleepy mining stock and more like a high‑beta tech name:

A Motley Fool analysis published via Nasdaq estimates that an investor who put $1,000 into TMC about a year ago would now have roughly $9,000, implying an ~800% gain. ^[7]
Another Nasdaq‑syndicated piece notes that by mid‑October, TMC’s stock had risen almost 11‑fold year‑over‑year, equating to a gain around 766%. ^[8]
A separate analysis describes the stock as up about 385% in 2025 alone, before the recent pullback. ^[9]

Technical screens highlight how wild the ride has been. A StockInvest.us model classifies TMC as a “Sell candidate” after an 11.6% drop on 10 December, noting daily volatility above 8% and a possible three‑month trading range between roughly $4.63 and $10.10. ^[10]

In short: TMC is volatile, heavily traded and still far from finding a stable trading range.

What The Metals Company actually does

TMC is not a traditional copper or nickel miner. It’s a deep‑sea minerals exploration company whose entire equity story revolves around polymetallic nodules—potato‑sized rocks scattered across the seafloor in the Clarion‑Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean. ^[11]

Those nodules are rich in:

Nickel
Cobalt
Copper
Manganese

— metals used in EV batteries, grid‑scale energy storage, data‑center infrastructure and steel production. ^[12]

According to TMC’s own technical work and investor materials:

Its U.S. subsidiary TMC USA has filed the world’s first commercial recovery permit application and two exploration license applications under the U.S. Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA), with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as regulator. ^[13]
The U.S.‑focused resource in those areas is estimated at 1.635 billion wet tonnes of nodules, containing tens of millions of tonnes of nickel, copper and manganese, and about 2 million tonnes of cobalt. ^[14]
A series of 2025 technical reports and a pre‑feasibility study have been associated with a combined project net present value (NPV) of about $23.6 billion, which helped trigger this year’s huge re‑rating in the share price. ^[15]

TMC pitches its nodules as potentially lower‑impact than land‑based mining. A life‑cycle assessment commissioned by the company and summarized in recent research suggests producing metals from CCZ nodules could have 54–70% lower global warming potential and fewer land‑use and tailings issues than conventional open‑pit mines, though that work is company‑linked and has been challenged by independent analysts. ^[16]

Regulatory chessboard: ISA vs. the U.S. path

The single biggest non‑financial variable for TMC is regulation.

International Seabed Authority (ISA)
- The ISA, a UN‑affiliated body, is still drafting exploitation rules for deep‑sea mining in international waters; no full mining code is in force yet. ^[17]
- Environmental concerns are serious: a 2025 Nature‑linked study cited by Reuters found ecological damage in an old Clarion‑Clipperton test site persisting more than 40 years after a small pilot mining run, fuelling calls from dozens of countries and NGOs for a moratorium. ^[18]
U.S. deep‑sea mining policy
- In 2025, the U.S. government issued an executive order directing NOAA to fast‑track permits for deep‑sea mining, with an explicit goal to secure critical minerals and counter China’s dominance in processing. ^[19]
- TMC’s U.S. subsidiary is trying to ride that wave, seeking permits under DSHMRA even though the U.S. is not a member of the ISA, creating a potential clash of legal regimes. ^[20]
Pacific sponsorships and Tonga deal
- On 4 August 2025, TMC’s wholly‑owned subsidiary Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML) signed a revised sponsorship agreement with the Kingdom of Tonga, reaffirming Tonga’s backing for TOML’s ISA exploration contract in the CCZ. ^[21]
- As part of that deal, TMC granted Tonga a warrant to buy 1,000,000 shares at $5.87, exercisable only if certain U.S. regulatory and commercial milestones are hit—effectively tying Tongan upside to TMC successfully turning permits into production. ^[22]
Geopolitics and criticism
- An oceans‑policy brief this week notes that TMC, portrayed as a U.S.‑aligned player, has drawn criticism from the ISA and European Union for pursuing a U.S. permitting route seen as bypassing global seabed rules, raising the risk of geopolitical pushback. ^[23]

In plain English: TMC is trying to thread a needle between global rules that don’t quite exist yet and a U.S. national‑interest strategy that may not mesh cleanly with those rules. That’s both the opportunity and the existential risk.

Q3 2025 results: cash cushion, negative equity

TMC’s Q3 2025 corporate update (for the quarter ended 30 September) illustrates the classic “asset‑rich, income‑poor” profile of an early‑stage resource developer. ^[24]

Headline numbers:

Cash: ~$115.6 million
Total assets: ~$175.6 million
Total liabilities: ~$216.2 million
Shareholders’ equity: –$40.6 million (negative) ^[25]

Income statement for Q3 2025:

Exploration & evaluation expense: $9.6 million
General & administrative: $45.7 million (up sharply year‑on‑year, driven largely by share‑based compensation, advisory and legal costs)
Operating loss: $55.4 million
Net loss: $184.5 million, or $0.46 per share, vs. a $20.5 million loss a year earlier. ^[26]

A big part of that net loss is non‑cash:

The fair value of TMC’s royalty liability was re‑measured upward by $131 million after new economic studies, turning what was a relatively small liability into a very large one. ^[27]
Additional non‑recurring items include warrant costs tied to updated sponsorship agreements (like the Tonga deal) and hefty restricted‑stock and option grants to insiders and employees. ^[28]

Cash‑flow wise, TMC used about $11.5 million in operating cash in the quarter and roughly $31.5 million year‑to‑date, a burn rate that—if maintained—gives around two to three years of runway on current cash and liquidity, not counting future financings. ^[29]

It’s worth stressing: TMC still has zero commercial revenue, yet carries a multi‑billion‑dollar valuation and negative equity. Multiple independent outlets—from Insider Monkey to Simply Wall St and Seeking Alpha—have flagged that combination as a significant financial‑risk factor. ^[30]

Why the stock exploded in 2025

A series of catalysts turned TMC from a micro‑cap curiosity into one of the most talked‑about small‑cap names in the critical‑minerals space.

Project economics and NPV headline
- In August, the company released two major technical reports indicating a combined NPV of about $23.6 billion for its first planned projects, according to a Nasdaq‑syndicated analysis. ^[31]
- This, plus TMC’s repeated framing of its CCZ licences as the “world’s largest undeveloped resource of critical metals,” provided a strong narrative for re‑rating.
Capital raises and strategic money
- A $37 million registered direct offering in May 2025, with warrants that automatically exercise if the share price stays above $7 for 20 days, helped extend funding “beyond potential grant of a commercial recovery permit,” according to TMC’s Q1 investor deck. ^[32]
- Korea Zinc agreed in June to invest about $85 million in TMC and to test processing routes for its nodules, strengthening the onshore refining story. ^[33]
Geopolitics and media attention
- Coverage in outlets like The Wall Street Journal and multiple Seeking Alpha analyses framed TMC as a potential first mover in deep‑sea mining just as Western governments grew uneasy about dependence on Chinese rare‑earth and battery‑metal supply chains. ^[34]
Massive price momentum
- By mid‑October, TMC’s share price briefly topped $11 before collapsing below $5 and then rebounding again—swings that reflect heavy speculative participation rather than slow‑moving institutional buying. ^[35]
- A Trefis note estimates the stock has re‑rated from less than 1× forward sales earlier in 2025 to around 8–9× forward sales based on projected revenue once production begins. ^[36]

That combination—big headline NPV, strategic government interest and social‑media‑friendly charts—turned TMC into a prime candidate for speculative capital.

Recent headlines: volatility, options and institutional flows

The last few weeks have been particularly eventful.

Options‑driven moves: TipRanks attributes a recent surge in TMC to heavy call option trading and a low put–call ratio, which pushed implied volatility higher and drew in short‑term traders. ^[37]
Copper linkage and profit‑taking: Insider Monkey highlights how TMC fell 9.7% in a single session after a four‑day rally, in part because investors locked in gains after copper hit a record high. ^[38]
Day‑trader interest: Trading educator Timothy Sykes pointed to a 12% intraday spike on 2 December after “confirmation of valuable deep‑sea discoveries,” underscoring TMC’s status as a momentum favourite. ^[39]
FXLeaders on the “turbulent comeback”: A December 10 FXLeaders article notes that TMC has rebounded nearly 70% from November lows below $5 back toward the $8 area, before a 7% pullback, and argues that geopolitical narratives around U.S. mineral independence are a key driver. The same piece cites short interest near the low‑teens percentage of float, making the stock sensitive to squeezes. ^[40]

On the ownership side:

A MarketBeat report this week reveals that Legal & General Group Plc bought 210,487 shares in Q2, worth about $1.39 million, and estimates that institutional investors own only about 4–5% of the stock, while insiders hold roughly 27–45%, depending on the dataset and time. ^[41]
The same report lists TMC’s beta at 1.82 (well above the market), reflecting its high volatility. ^[42]

TMC, in other words, behaves like a speculative micro‑sector ETF on deep‑sea mining, not like a traditional mining major—or like a mature insurer such as American International Group, Inc., which sits at the opposite end of the risk spectrum in terms of earnings visibility and balance‑sheet stability.

Analyst and model forecasts: a wide spread

There is no consensus “story” about TMC’s value; forecasts vary dramatically.

Street price targets

Investing.com / iOCharts
- Average 12‑month price target: ~$8.8, with a high of $12 and a low around $6.5.
- Five analysts tracked, with an overall “Strong Buy” rating and implied upside of roughly 25–26% from around $7. ^[43]
MarketBeat
- Tracks five analysts: three “Buy” ratings, one “Hold,” one “Sell.”
- Average price target: $7.42, only modestly above recent prices, and aggregate rating summarised as “Hold.” ^[44]
Seeking Alpha / Simply Wall St commentary
- One prominent analysis titled “Overvalued As Exuberance Defies Economic Reality” downgraded the stock in October, citing valuation, financial risk and dilution concerns. ^[45]
- Simply Wall St’s latest narrative stresses that TMC’s investment case rests on faith that deep‑sea nodules become permitted and commercially viable before cash and investor patience run out, and notes that 33 fair‑value estimates from its community range from about $1.05 to $10.50 per share, underscoring how divided opinions are. ^[46]

Quant and technical models

StockInvest.us
- Flags TMC as a short‑term “Sell candidate”, expecting a –3.4% move over the next three months but with a 90%‑probability range that still spans roughly $4.63–$10.10—a huge band that reflects extreme volatility.
- For today (11 December), the model projected a “fair opening price” around $7.12 and anticipated an intraday swing of roughly ±9–10%. ^[47]
Trefis
- Emphasises that if TMC’s projects reach $1–1.5 billion in annual revenue at scale, today’s valuation equates to about 8–9× forward sales, a rich multiple for a mining name and one that “will require flawless execution and regulatory clarity” to sustain. ^[48]

Put together, the external views cluster around three camps:

Speculative bull – sees TMC as an early‑stage, ESG‑tilted critical‑minerals play with multi‑bagger potential if deep‑sea mining is normalized.
Skeptical realist – worries that a $3 billion market cap and negative equity for a pre‑revenue miner already bakes in too much success.
Short‑term trader – treats TMC as a volatility vehicle whipped around by geopolitics, options flow and short interest.

Environmental debate: TMC’s ESG pitch vs. scientific uncertainty

TMC leans heavily on the idea that collecting nodules is cleaner than digging giant holes on land:

A life‑cycle assessment commissioned by the company and summarized by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence suggests that nodules‑based production could have 54–70% lower CO₂ emissions and significantly lower land disturbance than traditional mining. ^[49]

However, broader scientific and policy work is far more cautious:

The World Resources Institute notes that deep‑sea mining would involve vacuum‑like collectors scraping nodules and top sediment layers, with waste plumes discharged back into the water column, and that there is still major uncertainty about long‑term ecosystem impacts. ^[50]
A 2025 Nature‑linked study reported by Reuters found that even a narrow 1979 test strip in the CCZ still shows significant ecological disruption four decades later, feeding calls from more than 30 countries, corporations and NGOs for a moratorium. ^[51]
An AP analysis of the 2025 U.S. executive order warns that fast‑tracking permits could damage marine ecosystems, fisheries and the ocean’s role in carbon absorption, and points out that the U.S. is moving ahead even as many governments argue for a pause. ^[52]

For investors, the key takeaway is not to arbitrate the science, but to recognise that environmental uncertainty is itself a regulatory and reputational risk. A significant tightening of global attitudes could delay or even block the commercial phase that TMC’s valuation assumes.

Key milestones to watch into 2026–2027

From a stock‑specific perspective, several datapoints are likely to drive TMC’s next big moves:

Permitting progress with NOAA (U.S. path) – any update on the status of TMC USA’s commercial recovery and exploration licences under DSHMRA. ^[53]
ISA mining code and potential application – TMC has signalled it intends to file the first formal mining application once rules are in place; timing remains uncertain and politically sensitive. ^[54]
Q4 2027 production target – multiple analyses reference TMC’s late‑2027 goal for first commercial production, which will require simultaneous success in regulatory, engineering and financing efforts. ^[55]
Cash runway and financing events – with negative equity and continued burn, any new equity raise, strategic investment or debt facility will matter for dilution and solvency risk. ^[56]
Next earnings date – data providers point to 19–26 March 2026 as the next scheduled earnings window, which will likely include an update on cash, permitting and engineering milestones. ^[57]

How TMC fits into a portfolio

Nothing in this article is investment advice, but the risk profile is relatively clear:

Stage: pre‑revenue, development‑stage resource company.
Balance sheet: cash on hand but negative equity and large non‑cash liabilities. ^[58]
Drivers: permits, geopolitics, commodity prices, environmental policy and capital‑markets access.
Volatility: extreme; daily moves near or above 10% are not unusual, and modelled three‑month trading bands span a very wide range. ^[59]

For many investors, that places TMC firmly in the “speculative satellite” bucket—if it belongs in a portfolio at all—rather than in the core alongside diversified blue‑chips like American International Group, Inc.

Long‑term outcomes range from:

Bull case – permits are granted, environmental impacts prove manageable, and TMC ramps to billions in high‑margin revenue by the early 2030s, potentially justifying or exceeding today’s valuation. ^[60]
Base case – significant delays, additional dilution and regulatory compromises mean a slower, more modest ramp, with risk that returns don’t match early‑stage hype. ^[61]
Bear case – ISA and key governments move toward a moratorium or highly restrictive regime, capital dries up and the company is forced into restructuring, asset sales or a run‑off of exploration rights. ^[62]