Rick Rule’s VRIC 2026 Warning: Why 90% of Junior Miners Are Trash
Navigating the hype of the 2026 bull market by ignoring the noise and focusing on the math.
The mood at the Vancouver Convention Centre this past weekend was electric, bordering on euphoric. With gold flirting with new highs and the "This Isn't Our First Bull Market" panel drawing standing-room-only crowds, attendees at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) 2026 were ready to party like it was 2011. But amidst the sea of back-slapping and bullish forecasts, one man arrived with his trademark cold water bucket. Rick Rule, the legendary resource investor, didn't come to hype the crowd; he came to deprogram them.
While the hallway chatter focused on which penny stock might be the next 10-bagger, Rule took the stage with a different message, one that dissected the very mechanism of the conference itself: the art of "speaking." In a workshop aptly titled "Make The Money, Take The Money: A Discussion of Selling," Rule laid out a thesis that was as uncomfortable as it was necessary. His core argument was that 90% of the junior mining sector is "trash," populated not by business builders, but by professional speakers, promoters who excel at weaving narratives while incinerating capital.

