Sunday Edition: 21st December

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd and its associated entities may hold direct or indirect interests in securities referred to in this publication and may receive fees or other forms of consideration from entities mentioned. These interests and arrangements may create a potential conflict of interest in the preparation of this material.

The information contained in this communication is provided for general information purposes only and may relate to speculative investments. It does not constitute financial product advice, and has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any investment decision. Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

Yesterday we wrote about how last week felt VERY busy on the market for the “last full week before Christmas”...

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?

Check out our full Saturday note here, where we cover what stocks we are keeping an eye on over the coming weeks...

Oh and silver added US$5 per ounce this week... to close at a new record all time high of US$67.16/oz.

Did you see our new silver e-book that we released last weekend?

We consolidated our long standing silver investment thesis and the ASX silver stocks we are Invested into this ebook.

Download and read it here:

(Click here to get the eBook)

Below is a summary and links for everything else we wrote about last week, along with some other interesting content we found in relation to our Portfolio.

Quick Takes: EIQ, RML, LKY, EMD, KAU, BKB, ILA, TRI, AVM, WCE, AW1, SGQ, LSR, PUR

Deep Dives: VKA, RCM, ROC, IVR

EIQ made an FDA approval submission for its AI heart failure detection software.

EIQ said the typical approval process takes ~90 days. So we could hear back from the FDA before the end of the March quarter.

This one could be a real game changer for EIQ, with the Heart Failure market being almost 10x the size of its already FDA cleared Aortic Stenosis tech.

RML appointed chief metallurgist, Dr Adam Roper to its team.

A key part of Adam’s role would be to assess and pilot “downstream refining pathways capable of producing high-purity antimony and tungsten products”.

And to evaluate “opportunities for co-processing and shared infrastructure within the region”.

Great timing - just as the US Army looks to set up an antimony processing plant next together with RML’s neighbour Perpetua Resources in Idaho. Read more about that here.

This week Bloomberg published a deep dive on RML’s neighbour Perpetua Resources and its largest shareholder - billionaire investor and Donald Trump supporter John Paulson, who owns a 26% stake. Read it here.

LKY appointed US Lieutenant General (Ret.) Mark C. Schwartz as a strategic advisor.

LKY can now count on a current Lockheed Martin executive, a former US Air Force General and a former US Lieutenant General as advisors.

Earlier this year LKY produced the first US sourced, US refined antimony ingot in decades.

Hopefully LKY has shown enough to land the US$43M in grant funding that's been applied for.

EMD signed a deal with Avive Health to open a psychedelics treatment clinic in Victoria.

This will be EMD’s first clinic in Victoria, and the second across the east coast of Australia - this deal is similar to the one it signed with Avive in Queensland.

With EMD’s Perth clinic at capacity, the east coast rollout could become a big part of the EMD story in 2026.

KAU finished a drill program on its Victorian gold projects.

This drilling was on the waste dumps at its Maldon project - which hosted the highest grade gold mine in Australian history.

One man's trash is another man's treasure... quite literally in this case.

The old timers would have laughed at 1-2g/t dirt - nowadays that’s what's considered high grade gold.

With its own local plant hungry for ore and 163 drill results pending, maybe historic "trash" will be turned into some handy cash.

BKB started trading on the US OTCQB - ticker code BKBMF.

We are tracking trading volumes here.

Usually it takes a while for ASX small caps to get any traction on the OTC markets - and some don't get any at all.

So far, it looks like BKB’s had a fair bit of interest on the OTC, especially for the first two days a company hits the boards on that market.

(probably something to do with silver being declared a critical mineral - OR BKB’s dual focus on gold and silver).

ILA signed a deal with a biomedical research facility for its Marburg drug in the USA.

ILA’s deal is with one of only four facilities in the US capable of conducting certain preclinical infectious disease research trials in non-human primates.

The perfect fit for ILA which is weeks away from being ready to start non-human primate studies for its Marburg disease drug.

ILA expects to get a response from the FDA by the 2nd of January - so we could see those studies start fairly soon.

TRI released results from trials for current major depressive episode (cMDE) in US Veterans.

The trials had sensitivity of 97% which basically means TRI’s tech was able to detect 97% of cases objectively in patients who may otherwise remain undiagnosed using traditional screening approaches.

The big kicker was - this was the first time TRI tested its tech using single-lead ECG AND sensitivity improved...

So there are legs in the potential for TRI’s tech to be embedded in single-lead ECG devices - a potential opening of doors to the mass-market wearables market.

AVM has assays pending from five diamond drillholes at its silver project in Mexico.

Now we have resampling results from previously unsampled sections of that project AND the five diamond drillholes currently in the lab...

With the silver price doing what it’s doing at the moment (hitting new all-time highs every week) those results could be a catalyst for the AVM share price.

Assays are due from mid-January and the plan is to then feed them into a resource upgrade.

WCE now has aircore and diamond drill results pending from its Elizabeth Hill mine.

The diamond drilling had visual silver mineralisation and now the aircore’s got “geological indicators of silver”.

Assays from the aircore drilling on the regional targets are due in February, but we should see those diamond drill results drop before then.

Hopefully the aircore targets show up enough silver to warrant coming back with a deeper rig (and hopefully find a repeat of the old Elizabeth Hill mine).

AW1 is now fully permitted for a drill program on its giant indium deposit in early 2026.

AW1’s project is already the biggest indium deposit in the USA (based on just 35% of the deposit being sampled for critical mineral indium).

The big kicker with the 2026 drilling (starting in January) will be the focus on other minerals as well as indium.

We already know one of the old holes that was recently resampled had an intercept for a combined total of 518m of gallium with a peak grade of 77.3 g/t.

The question we want to see get answered is - can AW1’s giant indium deposit also host a giant gallium resource?

(like the Apex mine which was the USA’s only primary gallium mine decades ago and the asset that AW1 keeps referencing as ‘similar geologically’ to AW1’s asset).

We should get an answer to the question in early 2026.

SGQ hit some of its thickest rare earth-niobium hits from its project in Brazil.

SGQ’s got 3 rigs drilling 24/7 on site and has now hit extensions ~230m to the west and ~1km to the east of its existing resource.

If we keep seeing results like the ones this week - that resource upgrade coming in H1-2026 could be a monster (and hopefully trigger more detailed comparisons with the assets owned by 14BN MP Materials and $12BN Lynas Rare Earths).

Here’s how SGQ’s current resource compares on a global scale:

(Source)

LSR announced a 250k to 300k ounce exploration target for its WA gold project.

We are Invested in LSR for the US heavy rare earths asset.

But it's hard to ignore what’s happening on that WA gold asset - LSR has plans for ~10,000m of drilling on the project and wants to define a resource in early 2026.

IF LSR can get there that asset could underpin LSR’s valuation and give us a “free kick” on the US heavy rare earths.

PUR finalised a drilling plan for its silver-gold project in Argentina.

The plan is a 4,050m drill program, starting soon looking to make a discovery similar to $168BN Newmont’s Cerro Negro project (which sits ~100km to the north of PUR’s ground).

The ultimate success case for PUR would be a discovery that resembles Cerro Negro (we would take something even 1/4 the size).

PUR’s exploration model is based on drilling below what’s called a “silica cap” where it expects to find the big discovery.

That’s how Cerro Negro was discovered.

PUR’s project has “one of only three known silica caps” in this part of Argentina - so it will be interesting to see what drilling produces from that target.

Viking Mines (ASX:VKA)

In terms of new Investments, we thought we were done for the year...

But when the same team behind LKY (that went from 1.8c to a high of 69c in six months) announced a new US critical minerals project, in a company capped at sub ~$10M... we couldn’t say no.

Our new US critical minerals Investment is VKA.

This week VKA announced the acquisition of tungsten projects in Nevada, USA.

Tungsten is a critical military mineral. The USA has zero domestic supply.

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.

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

(Source)

VKA’s new projects have historic production of a combined ~123,000t at 0.54% tungsten grades AND the main asset sits ~200km from the USA’s new Hawthorne Army Base in Nevada where the US critical minerals stockpile is supposed to be based.

This Army Base is the biggest munitions depot in the USA (and the world).

Read more: Our Latest Investment: Viking Mines (ASX: VKA)

Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM)

RCM owns 100% 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 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: RCM announcement)

The hole ended in mineralisation AND has proven RCM’s “parallel lode” theory - the theory that there could be more Webb’s style mineralised lodes to the west of the existing resource.

(A “lode” is a deposit of valuable minerals, in this case, silver)

This new discovery could add significant high grade silver resources to the company and is a good sign there could be even more new parallel silver lodes to be found.

(Source: RCM announcement)

Read more: RCM: Discovers new silver lode right next to its 14.2M oz silver lode...

RocketBoots (ASX:ROC)

This week ROC signed one of the best deals we have ever seen from any small ASX listed tech company.

Approximately $9.1M annual recurring revenue...

That’s $9.1M PER YEAR... for at least 5 years... and probably beyond.

That’s not a typo.

With one transformational deal, they have increased their yearly revenue by ~1,400%...

(Source: ROC announcement)

With this deal now closed, by our calcs ROC still has about ~$61M of potential revenue in its “advanced stage pipeline” across 13 global companies (more on this in the link below).

(and this week ROC has proven to the market it can close major deals)

We Invested in ROC back in March because the company had a genuine use case for AI and was developing its AI tech years before AI became the hottest thematic in the world.

And now ROC has signed a major global retail customer on a giant deal that adds approximately $9.1M annual recurring revenue to ROC....

(again, for context, in FY25 ROC reported $660k revenue)

(Source, Source, Source)

Read more: ~$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)

Silver gapped up above A$100 per ounce for the first ever this week.

Great timing for our Investment IVR which owns one of Australia’s highest grade, pure play silver projects.

IVR’s project has a 57M ounce silver JORC resource estimate with an average grade of 73g/t. (source)

This week, IVR added an ADDITIONAL 13M ounces of silver to its mine plan by optimising its pit designs.

That’s an additional ~A$1.3BN of silver at today’s AUD spot price.

(Source: IVR announcement)

Here is that “optimised pit shell” IVR has redesigned to get those extra ounces:

(source)

IVR already has all of the required technical and engineering design work, including - processing plant designs to build its mine.

And now NEW pit designs and production scheduling is all complete.

With silver hitting ~A$100 per ounce.

This week, pit optimisations added an ADDITIONAL 13M ounces of silver into the mine plan (an extra A$1.3BN in silver at today’s spot prices.

Now we wait to see how the silver price and the new mine plan impact the IVR’s Definitive Feasibility Study due in the first half of 2026 where we will get a detailed look at the most up-to-date project economics. (source)

Here is a video of IVR’s Managing Director Lachlan Wallace, talking about the technical optimisations done for the mine build (watch it here).

We haven’t seen an MD this energised about mine optimisations before with such a glint in their eye...

He is definitely a focused “mine building guy” having done it before as the former CEO of Hillgrove Resources, where he led the design, permitting, financing and restart of the Kanmantoo copper mine, also in South Australia...

Read more: IVR: Finds an additional 13M ounces of silver... silver hits A$100 per ounce

Mithril Silver and Gold (ASX:MTH) - Exploring Mexico’s Sierra Madre Gold-Silver Trend High Grade, Fully Funded and Ready to Grow December 2025

Sprott Radio Podcast - Silver’s “perfect storm” is here. With record deficits and exploding solar demand, Peter Krauth explains why this “generational upside” is the opportunity you can't afford to miss. (This is a podcast with a transcript)

Bloomberg - Argentina is pushing to become involved in critical minerals as BHP and Rio Tinto are now advancing multibillion-dollar copper and lithium projects lured by President Milei’s new investment shields and record-breaking metal prices.

This could be good news for our Investment PUR which recently closed the acquisition of a gold project in Argentina.

Bloomberg - Is this billion-dollar Idaho mine a national security savior or an $18 billion gold play? See why the military is funding Perpetua’s "critical mineral" project.

The White House - Trump orders marijuana rescheduled to Schedule III to unlock medical research, while mandating new federal regulations to ensure the safety of hemp-derived CBD products.

With THC being reclassified into a category of a less dangerous drug class, this could be good news for our THC infused drink manufacturing Investment PKP who has US operations.

FT - “Unheard of numbers”: Hedge funds score massive wins as Big Pharma’s $180 billion patent panic triggers the biggest biotech rally in a decade.

FT - Forget Elvis, Parkes is now ground zero for the rare-earth war with a billionaire-backed scandium mine aiming to help break China’s grip, sending shares soaring 900%

Black Bear Minerals (ASX: BKB | OTC: BKBMF) - Harnessing North America’s Exceptionally High-Grade Pure Silver and Gold Deposits East Coast Research

Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) -Paris – Keeps Getting Better MST Access

Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB | OTC: BKBMF) - Episode 110 - Dennis Lindgren, CEO of Black Bear Minerals

Can a Silver Deposit Become a Mine in Today's Mexico? | Mithril Silver & Gold CEO Interview

Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) - Paris Silver DFS Update - Optimisation and Recovery Lift

Francis Hunt: First Innings for Gold, Hyper Stagflation & Why Platinum Will Outperform Silver

Michael Oliver: Why It's Not Too Late for Gold, $200 Silver Next Year and Massive Surge for Miners

Eric Sprott's SHOCKING Portfolio - 2025 Yearly Wrap-Up | Sprott Money

A word of caution...

While we aim to highlight developments in the small cap space, investing in early-stage and small cap companies - like those we cover - is inherently risky.

These companies often face funding challenges, regulatory hurdles, and market volatility. Announcements may reflect aspirations more than guaranteed outcomes.

Things can, and often do, change.

Just because a company has signed a deal, released drill results, or appointed a new director doesn’t mean success is assured.

Always assume delays, cost overruns, or results that don’t pan out.

We’re here to share insights, not offer personal financial advice - so please do your own research and speak with a licensed adviser before acting on anything mentioned.

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Bye for now.