Christmas came early for a few of our Investments, what else are we expecting?

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Common sense dictates that yesterday should effectively have been the last day for the ASX in 2026...

Even though the ASX is still open on Monday, Tuesday and a half day on Wednesday next week.

Surely most market participants would have packed it in for the year...

Right?

Well, every year is different.

If the market sucks, people start tuning out for their summer holidays in early to mid December. Why prolong the suffering?

But when sentiment is positive, and people are making or have made money, stocks are up and hubris is high - and the market can keep bubbling away until the very last day of trading.

(kinda like not wanting to leave the blackjack table when things are going well... and vice versa - not that we condone gambling in any form)

This week, the market felt VERY busy for a “last full week before Christmas”.

Our AI tech Investment ROC announced one of the best deals we have ever seen from a small ASX tech company.... and was up as high as 100% on huge volumes on the day of the news.

ROC’s “Vision Artificial Intelligence” technology is used by giant companies (like major retailers and banks) to analyse and respond to in-store customer behaviours.

On Thursday ROC signed a transformational ~A$9.1M Annual Recurring Revenue global contract with a Tier 1 retailer for an AI SaaS solution.

(Looking at our Portfolio, ROC’s deal is arguably on par with IVZ’s mega Qatar deal in the “company maker” context)

We Invested in ROC at 8c back in March and Thursday’s deal saw it close the week at 26.5c - touching a high of 39.5c on the day of the announcement.

(while we predominantly Invest in resources (like most of the ASX), we occasionally find a tech stock we really like and seem have a knack for picking tech stocks that go up - like ROC, ONE, AL3 - if you have any good ideas for other tech stocks please reply)

This week we also made a new Portfolio addition in one of our main Investment themes for 2026 - USA critical minerals.

We Invested in VKA and its new tungsten project in Nevada, USA.

Nevada has been very good to us with two of our biggest winners - SS1 and BKB, plus NASDAQ listed Hycroft which is up 300% in 3 months.

(more on VKA and ROC in a second)

We also saw a few companies that we expect to release major news during the Christmas season make announcements.

And there are probably still a few more to come.

But before we get into the catalysts we are looking out for over the break, we can’t go a week without pointing out that...

You guessed it...

Silver just closed the week at ANOTHER NEW record all time high.

(Is this getting boring yet? My wife says she is tired of hearing about silver)

Silver just casually added US$5 per ounce this week... to close at a new record all time high of US$67.16.

(*does quick mental maths on the impact of the US$5 per ounce rise in the silver price this week on SS1’s estimated 539M ounces of silver equivalent JORC resource)

Another week, another new record high for silver, and silver stocks were responding.

But what we think will REALLY get our 8 ASX silver stocks going is if/when a proper silver “mania” starts...

We’ll spare you another week of silver commentary...

(even though we are VERY excited about it... at the same time there is no guarantee the market will match our enthusiasm, we can get things wrong)

Last week we collated our silver thesis into this eBook, including what needs to happen for a “silver mania” to grab the market and really take silver stocks with it:

(Click here to get the eBook)

(looks like somebody got already got gripped by silver mania on Friday afternoon while we were watching IVR at market close - it was either a fat finger slip on the buy order OR they are VERY keen on IVR - more on this in a second)

Also in silver this week, RCM’s drilling clipped a NEW parallel silver lode next to its estimated 14.2M ounce deposit. RCM’s next round of drilling is going to go down into the guts of it...

(remember when this “clip the edge and then drill into the guts” happened to GAL and it ran from 20c to $1.80 in like 8 days after they announced the drill results?)

(past performance is not an indicator of future performance)

We are very keen to see RCM’s next drill results and confirm the size and scale of one (or even multiple) parallel silver lodes to add to RCM’s total estimated 67M ounces of silver equivalent resources averaging ~400 g/t across three projects in NSW.

More on all of the above in today’s note.

More on our final NEW Investment for 2025:

This week we added Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) to our Portfolio after it announced the acquisition of 6 tungsten projects in Nevada, USA.

We continue to be very bullish on US critical minerals over the next 2-5 years.

After last week's news that the US Army would be moving into critical mineral processing for tungsten, we wanted to add US tungsten exposure to our Portfolio.

(source)

Tungsten is an ultra hard metal and has a high melting point.

Tungsten has military uses in munitions (bullets), vehicles and body armour, missiles and radiation shielding.

The USA is 100% beholden to imports of this critical military mineral - it has zero domestic supply.

China dominates global tungsten supply (~80% of the market) and (of course) has wielded its market dominance and applied export restrictions.

(Source)

Tungsten prices hit new all time highs this week in China (with some folks on X speculating on potential Chinese government stockpiling):

(source)

VKA’s tungsten projects are ~200km away from the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada - the USA’s main ammunition stockpile.

And in the same region as another Nevada tungsten asset that received US$6.2M in funding from the Department Of War. (source)

VKA has the same team behind LKY who were in California for antimony and rare earths years before anyone else was thinking about US critical minerals.

So we are backing them to use their in country expertise with VKA - this time in tungsten.

Check out our initiation note for the 9 key reasons why we Invested in VKA

We also received a few early Christmas presents this week

A few weeks back, we put together a list of catalysts we are watching out going into the Christmas/New year period.

It's now two weeks since we put that out and we have had 4 catalysts come in already:

Rocketboots (ASX:ROC)

The biggest by far has been ROC.

ROC signed a deal which we think transforms the trajectory of the business going forward.

The deal was for approximately $9.1M annual recurring revenue.

~$9.1M PER YEAR for at least 5 years... and probably beyond.

That single deal alone will increase ROC revenues by ~1,400%.

And it's only for 40% of that customer's store network.

If this one global customer decides to roll out ROC’s tech across the other 60% of its stores, we can extrapolate to bring the total to $22.5M annual recurring revenue to ROC.

(Source: ROC announcement)

The market loved the news - ROC was up as high as 108% off the back of the announcement and closed the week at 26.5c per share:

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

“Game on” for ROC now. A few follow up deals from the (our estimate) ~$60M of advanced stage sales pipeline, and ROC could really start to take off.

(no guarantees of course)

If ROC keeps going, it could well and truly be hitting this phase of the tech stock “hockey stick” growth chart:

Read our commentary on ROC’s deal : ~$30M capped ROC signs $9.1M PER YEAR revenue deal with major global retailer - for 5 years. Nearly ~1,400% increase to ROC’s last year revenue.

Investigator Silver (ASX:IVR)

This week IVR had more of a technical announcement out.

But that is to be expected, given IVR is at the pointy end of the development stage for its silver project.

IVR added an extra 13M ounces of silver to its mine plan (~$1.3BN in silver at today’s spot prices) with new “optimised” pit designs.

We covered the news here: IVR: Finds an additional 13M ounces of silver... silver hits A$100 per ounce

When we sent our note out on Friday morning the stock was trading down ~10% for the day, however afterwards it recovered throughout the day and closed the day up 1.16%.

We noticed a huge buy order of over 34 million shares get placed right at the close at 8.6c which took up whatever supply there was between 8 and 8.6c.

We did get a screenshot in before the bid was taken off-screen post market close:

Here is the minute by minute chart for the day:

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

It's pretty unusual to see big orders like the above that come on screen and scoop up any stock available in a big range. The bid disappeared after the market closed, but its all eyes on IVR for us on Monday morning.

We can only speculate on the giant buy order....

Was it a graduate stockbroker who accidentally added an extra two zeros with a “fat finger” when placing a buy order?

Or does some whale out there legit want to buy ~35M IVR shares on market?

Let’s see if the order returns on Monday...

(or a young stockbroker somewhere changes their LinkedIn status to “seeking new opportunities”)

Sun Silver (ASX:SS1)

SS1 also delivered a surprise catalyst early.

SS1 upgraded its silver resource by adding a further 59M ounces of silver equivalent to the resource.

(source)

The market reacted fairly positively to that news. Silver running very hard may have helped here.

SS1 is now very much flirting with its previous all time highs of around $1.60 per share.

Fingers crossed that silver keeps running, enough to get a breakout above that level:

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

We have written in the past how every US$1 per ounce increase to the silver price is material for SS1 and their 539M ounce silver equivalent resource...

This was back when silver might rise by US$1 every couple of months.

This week alone silver rose by US$5 per ounce.

Last week it rose by US$3 per ounce.

The week before that US$4 per ounce.

And SS1 certainly has been responding well.

Speaking of silver...

Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM)

Eric Sprott backed Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM) is Australia’s highest grade silver equivalent, pre-development, company.

RCM has an estimated 67M ounces of silver equivalent resources averaging ~400 g/t across three projects in NSW.

One of those projects, Webbs, has an estimated 14.2M ounces silver equivalent, and is where RCM has spent the last few months drilling.

This week we learnt that with the first hole, RCM drilled through and clipped what looks like it could be the edge of a whole new silver system, ~120m to the west of Webbs...

(source)

For some reason, the market initially responded with some selling - the stock was sold down ~15% on the open after the announcement.

We thought the announcement was very good - RCM clipped the edge of a mineralised system (the hole ended in mineralisation) that RCM says could be a “parallel lode” similar to its Webbs deposit.

Webbs has an estimated 14M ounces of silver equivalent.

So if RCM is right and the next round of drilling proves the “parallel lode” theory we would anticipate a big increase to the silver equivalent resource at this part of its projects.

(source)

We are very keen to see this next set of RCM’s drill holes...

Read our full commentary on RCM’s results and what’s next here: RCM: Discovers new silver lode right next to its 14.2M oz silver lode...

What else are we watching out for over the next few weeks?

The ASX will still be open for 6 trading days before the New Year, so we could see more share price catalysts come in over the next 2-3 weeks.

Here are the companies in our Portfolio we are on “catalyst watch” for, in no particular order:

• TTM has ~25 days of exclusivity left with its 9.9% shareholder $4.2BN Lingbao for a deal on its 3.1M ounce gold, 22M ounce silver Dynasty project in Ecuador. So we could see a deal announced at some point in the coming weeks.

Lingbao recently raised ~A$227M and explicitly said it would use 80% of those funds for “mergers and acquisitions”, AND also said Lingbao were preparing for a second site visit to look at infrastructure and mines in the area. We wait to see what may come of this.

• ILA recently made an additional submission to the FDA regarding the Animal Rule process for its Marburg disease drug (the Animal Rule could lead to accelerated FDA approvals) and explicitly said this week that it is expecting feedback “by 2 January 2026”.

Feedback from the FDA could be a material share price catalyst for ILA. Earlier this week ILA signed a Master Service Agreement with a Texas Biomedical Research Institute. It is one of only a few facilities in the US with the capability of undertaking ILA’s intended “Animal Rule” clinical pathway that ILA is awaiting FDA followup feedback for. Looks like ILA is already getting itself prepared to begin once the FDA responds.

• RML has assays pending from holes to the south of its gold discovery in the US. If those holes come in similar to the results we have been seeing so far, it would extend the known strike of the deposit from ~600m to ~3km...

600m alone is already very big for a gold deposit. 3km would be giant...

• HAR has assays due any day now from its project in Senegal. The last set of assays took its share price from 6c to ~21c... AND HAR is also currently drilling its US gold project, following up old hits that were ~3m at 100g/t+ gold.

Results similar to the previous round of drilling from Senegal OR visible gold/high grades from the US drilling could be a needle mover for HAR.

• BKB was set to have drilled its fourth drillhole at Rebel Peak “targeting extensions”.

This is along strike from its shallow resource where prior sampling returned grades much higher than this part of the resource at over 5g/t.

BKB also started drilling its silver project in Texas last week - assays won't fall into our Christmas/New Year time period but the drilling being underway now might bring more interest into BKB from the silver crowd, as long as silver prices keep running.

• AVM could be having results from both drilling and resampling of old cores at its Yoquivo silver project in Mexico and a second drill rig began drilling at its Victorian gold project in early November, where visible gold was seen in prior drill cores.

AVM had an update out this week - the first five diamond holes are now drilled and assays are in the lab, expected from mid January. So this catalyst looks locked and loaded for sometime in the next few weeks.

• MTH has an updated JORC resource estimate due for its project in 2026. But we are particularly interested in those assays pending from Target 5 where sampling returned silver grades up to 4,520g/t.

A resource upgrade would be great... but silver grades like that in drilling while silver is running could really get the market interested in MTH...

• WCE finished an aircore drill program on its regional targets AND has diamond drilling results due inside the next few weeks.

The aircore drilling will be the first time WCE has gone looking for repeats of the Elizabeth Hill Mine (previously one of Australia's highest-grade silver mines). So we are really interested in seeing results from those holes (though they are due in Feb 2026).

The results that may fall into our Christmas/New year window will be from the diamond holes drilled next to the old Elizabeth Hill mine.

Then there are the stocks where there are no explicit timelines for catalysts but a big game changing deal could drop at any time - like it did with ROC this week.

One company in our Portfolio with a similar setup is ONE.

• ONE is another where one big deal could be material for the company’s revenue profile.

ONE’s sales pipeline is at the highest point it's ever been (>180 prospects, 48,000 endpoints) AND CEO James Fitter explicitly said “Several of the late-stage opportunities we’ve been pursuing are expected to close in the coming months, adding further new customer logos to our roster”. We follow ONE’s Linkedin page and have noticed some more client activity.

And finally there are the “US critical mineral government funding” catalyst stocks - these are the ones with exposure to US critical minerals and actively chasing non-dilutive funding:

• ION just raised $4M and said it would use the cash to “focus on e-waste recycling in the US, including a US-based e-waste recycling plant” AND also said...

... “The funds raised from the Placement also strengthen the Company’s balance sheet, important for US Government grant applications”.

• and then there are all of the critical minerals stocks that we would love to see win some sort of US government funding - RML, SS1, LKY, LSR and AW1.

With this much going on, we are definitely going to be watching the markets next week...

(and even in that weird time vortex between Christmas and New Years day when nobody is working and you don’t know what day it is)

Have a great weekend,

Next Investors