What happened Shares of Coeur Mining (NYSE: CDE) are falling today, down by 15.3% as of 2:36 p.m. EDT, in wake of the the gold and silver miner releasing first-quarter results after yesterday's market close. Investors are clearly not pleased, but it requires a little extra digging to see why. So what At first blush, Coeur's numbers weren't so bad. First-quarter 2021 revenue came in at roughly $202 million, up significantly from $128 million in the prior-year period. Gold sales rose 8% and silver sales jumped 42%. The realized gold price increased about 11.5% and production was basically flat. The realized silver price soared a massive 57%, helping to offset a production drop of roughly 11%. Net income per share, meanwhile, came in at $0.01 compared to a -PER-SHARE"}==!> loss in the year-ago period. The company posted adjusted net income of $0.06 per share versus a breakeven result in Q1 2020. All in, that sounds pretty positive. Image source: Getty Images. The problem is that most of the first-quarter results compared unfavorably with Coeur's Q4 performance. For example, revenue fell roughly 11.5% sequentially. Net income dropped from $0.05 per share in the fourth quarter of 2020 to $0.01 per share. The adjusted net income figure of $0.06 per share represented a decline of 25% from Q4. Meanwhile, Wall Street had been expecting net income of $0.08 per share. So the quarterly performance maybe wasn't quite as good as it seemed at first, which makes the stock's slump a lot less surprising. Now what Coeur is also ramping up its capital spending as it looks to develop a large new project, which means there's extra money going out the door right now. It's good news that it is facing these costs at a time when gold and silver prices are relatively high, but it means that elevated expenses will likely depress performance throughout the year, and likely into next year. From a big-picture perspective, $2 billion-market-cap Coeur is a relatively small miner, which is a space that most long-term investors should probably avoid. And even if you do venture in, it's probably best to view precious metals miners as a diversification tool instead of a leveraged bet on the movement of gold and silver prices. 10 stocks we like better than Coeur MiningWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Coeur Mining wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 24, 2021 Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source