Sunday Edition: 25th January

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.

Silver closed out the week at US$103.

Up 7.3% in Friday’s session, and up ~43% in the first 24 days of January...

Yesterday we wrote about legendary silver investor Eric Sprott.

And how he had been buying more NASDAQ listed Hycroft Mining shares... even though it’s already almost up 1,000% from his initial entry price a few months ago.

Another silver stock Eric Sprott has been buying on market in the last two weeks that hasn’t had a big run yet is our Investment Rapid Critical Metals (ASX: RCM).

Sprott increased his RCM stake by 13,908,715 shares, which were purchased on market for $999,256 (average of ~7.18c per share, source)

(RCM last traded at 7.9c)

This has increased his holding in RCM from 9.72% to 10.79%.

RCM has an estimated 67M ounces of silver equivalent resources at a very high average grade of ~400g/t silver equivalent across three NSW projects.

RCM’s target is to grow that number to 100M ounces silver equivalent.

RCM is backed by major institutional investors Eric Sprott, Tribeca, and Jupiter.

Last month RCM announced their first drill hole had clipped what looks like it could be the edge of a whole new silver system ~120m to the west of their 14.2M ounces silver equivalent Webbs project... (read the full update here)

Next step is to drill through the guts of where RCM believes this new parallel silver lode could be PLUS there are 6 more drill results to come any day now from RCM’s initial drill program.

Yesterday we also wrote about how lithium is making a comeback...

and how some of our silver, gold and US critical metals stocks still have solid lithium projects in the background.

Last year RCM sold some of its previous projects in exchange for shares in the company that purchased them - Iris Metals.

RCM now owns over 18 million shares of near term USA lithium producer, Iris Metals...

RCM did a deal on these shares before lithium got popular again - Iris is up a few hundred % now at 20c, RCM’s position is now worth $3.6M... not bad.

A good example of the benefits companies can get from their previous projects.

Especially if we are in fact entering an “every commodity” bull market.

(RCM also has a gallium and germanium project in Canada, with IP survey results expected next week)

It's about time that commodities in general became popular again...

Read what we wrote in yesterday’s Saturday note - click here to read.

Following the public holiday on Monday in Australia, the rest of the week should be filled with quarterly reports. One of those four times in the year when we get to see how much cash all of our companies are actually holding, and assess who might be looking to raise additional funds.

Below you can find everything else we wrote about last week, plus some interesting stuff we came across on our travels.

Quick Takes: SS1, PNN, RML, MTH, HAR, SGQ, AVM, VKA, BPM, PKP

Deep Dives: SGQ, NC1 (New Portfolio Addition), AW1, VKA, ONE

SS1 (🇺🇸: SSLVF) doubled the land position around its giant silver resource in Nevada.

SS1 expanded its project area to the north and south, securing additional ground for infrastructure development and/or exploration at its 539Moz silver equivalent Mineral Resource Estimate:

(source)

We wonder if it grabbed this land primarily to give itself more options to place mining infrastructure, or for more exploration.

Canaccord Genuity has hiked its price target for SS1 by 89% to $4.15/sh, citing higher silver price assumptions.

SS1 closed on Friday at $2.23/share.

The SS1 price target was in a broader Canaccord report on precious metals stocks ahead of Dec 25 quarterly reporting season (which kicks off next week). Check out the full Canaccord precious metals report here.

(Just remember never invest on a price target alone, do your own research. Analysts don't always get it right, their price targets come from a number of assumptions that may not be correct)

PNN put out another batch of assays from its rare earths and niobium project in Brazil.

PNN’s shallow auger drilling confirmed rare earths and niobium across the northern part of its Brazilian carbonatite complex, validating its exploration model.

There is a deeper 10,000m RC drill program scheduled to start this month, targeting a maiden resource estimate in Q1.

RML (🇺🇸: RLMLF) outlined its tungsten exploration and development strategy.

RML has a historic US tungsten mine at its Horse Heaven project, where grades averaged up to ~2% in the 1970s, plus there’s an estimated 2,000 tonnes of tungsten ore still on site.

With tungsten prices at all-time highs and the US being 100% import reliant, RML has engaged the services of the mine’s very own former geologist to assist with fast tracking tungsten exploration and development activities.

Here is a picture of that mill and the tungsten stockpile we saw when we were on site at the RML’s project last year:

RML believes that additional potential exists to define additional tungsten mineralisation at and around the historic mine, and at other targets at the project.

MTH (🇺🇸: MTIRF | 🇨🇦: MSG) released high grade results from “Target 1” at its project in Mexico.

MTH hit high-grade extensions (1.35m @ 21.9g/t gold and 357g/t silver) at its "Target 1" area, outside the current resource area.

This extended mineralisation 300m west and down-dip, with these results further supporting the "district scale" potential of the 8km trend.

HAR put out an update on drilling at its US gold project in California.

HAR continues to drill, with visuals confirming expected lode structures.

The project has a 286,000 oz foreign resource and data from a 2008 report shows it could actually host up to ~682,000 ounces. With this round of drilling, HAR is aiming to convert those into JORC compliant resource estimates.

This week HAR confirmed 334.4m of diamond drilling had been completed at cross cut 3 (XC3).

And at cross cut 4 (XC4), the final drill hole is currently being completed from that part of the decline.

Below is an image from a prior announcement showing each XC with the drilling plan:

(Source)

Unfortunately HAR has announced that due to significant rainfall recently, that dewatering progress has been delayed by around 15 days.

This delay will also impact the remainder of the program and therefore the results and conversion of the resource to JORC status, which has been delayed beyond the end of January.

Next we will wait to see HAR provide a further update on expected timing for this once greater clarity is available, including lab turnaround times.

SGQ updated its partnership with US magnet maker REAlloys.

SGQ and REAlloys agreed to extend the timeline of its strategic alliance, with a view to finalising potential offtake agreements.

REAlloys requires rare earths feedstock to be able to achieve its magnet production for the US defence sector.

REAlloys is continuing met testwork on samples of rare earths oxalates produced from SGQ’s project, using its proprietary technology for splitting and recovery of individual rare earth elements.

The results of the test work will guide the optimisation of the processing flowsheet for production of rare earths products at Araxa, with the aim of producing a product most amenable to REalloys magnet making operations.

REAlloys is backed by US$200M in US EXIM financing and seeking non-Chinese feedstock, SGQ’s giant high grade Brazilian deposit is a prime candidate.

AVM hit more visible gold ~100m to the east of its Happy Valley project in Victoria.

AVM hit 0.6m @ 66.7g/t gold from a new structure ~100m east of its Happy Valley project in Victoria.

With gold prices exceeding A$7,000/oz (at the time...) we see some comparisons to how $2.9BN Southern Cross Gold emerged in its early days (although we will stress very early days for AVM here).

This step-out discovery suggests a multi-lode system could be emerging, an even further step out hole is currently being drilled.

VKA started metallurgical testwork at its US tungsten project.

VKA has begun metallurgical testwork on bulk samples (that contained up to 1.3% tungsten) from its historic Linka mine in Nevada.

The aim is to test for a "Rapid Advancement" low-CAPEX model to produce domestic tungsten metal.

Targeting early production opportunities as the US scrambles to secure non-Chinese supply sounds like a good plan to us.

More on VKA in our Deep Dive further down.

BPM released the results from the recent drilling at its gold project in WA.

BPM had a hit of 9m @ 7.7g/t gold (inc. 2m @ 21.7g/t) at its WA project near the 8Moz Tropicana deposit.

Every hole hit mineralisation and gold prices had just hit new all time highs of US$4,950/oz.

BPM is planning to get back ASAP, with a 2,500m follow-up program already planned.

BPM’s WA gold asset starting to get some attention elsewhere too:

A few days before these results, the Money of Mine podcast hosted Tom Woolrych, a fund manager from Deutsche Rohstoff AG, who gave BPM a shoutout as a recent PA (personal account) purchase.

The BPM target Tom is most interested in is the Bonnie & Clyde target, which is not yet fully permitted. Tom is keen to see that target drilled once permitting is sorted (so are we).

Check out the Money of Mine podcast section where BPM is talked about here.

It’s always good to see fund managers that normally look at bigger companies venture down to the micro cap end of town, and look at some of our Investments.

PKP expanded a manufacturing agreement to produce an additional 500k-700k beverages annually in Canada.

This stock is a bit different to most in our Portfolio, PKP manufactures THC beverages, a growing industry which is an alternative to alcohol.

PKP is our way of getting “pick and shovels” exposure to an industry that we think will grow over the medium term.

PKP is expanding its manufacturing agreement with St. Peter’s to produce an additional 500k–700k THC beverages annually in Canada.

This is for the exclusive Canadian manufacturing of the popular Green Monke and Cookies brands.

St George Mining (ASX:SGQ)

Rare earths...

The weirdly named minerals critical in military applications, autonomous robots, modern industrialisation, clean energy and high tech electronics.

China has a stranglehold over the entire rare earths market, and has placed export controls to protect its dominance.

The USA wants to shore up its own supply fast.

Will the next big investment theme be the USA replacing China dependent critical minerals supply with new supply from western hemisphere sources in South America, Canada and... possibly Greenland? (read our take on this here)

The USA sees Brazil as a potential partner for an alternative source of rare earths.

In August last year, the US government’s development bank agreed to loan $465M to Brazil’s only operating rare earths mine.

There’s now chatter about a broader potential USA-Brazil critical minerals deal this quarter (75% chance according to one industry pundit).

Earlier this week our Brazil rare earths & niobium Investment St George Mining (ASX:SGQ) hit more high grade rare earths mineralisation - up to 99.1m at 5.62% rare earth grades, all from surface.

SGQ already owns 100% of the largest and highest-grade carbonatite-hosted rare earths deposit in South America.

It’s also the second highest grade rare earths asset in the Western world.

Drill rigs are spinning 24/7 and SGQ is finding high-grade mineralisation well beyond its existing resource area.

There is a Mineral Resource upgrade due this quarter and results like we have been seeing lately could grow this significantly.

The timing couldn’t be better given some industry insiders are predicting a potential USA-Brazil critical minerals deal in the coming months.

Source

SGQ is backed by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and held ~$52M in cash at the end of December.

Read more: SGQ: Giant rare earths deposit in the USA’s “neighborhood” - how about these drill results...

Nico Resources (ASX:NC1) - 🚨New Investment🚨

We think the world is about to enter an “every commodity” bull run.

(driven in part by the recently opened “Pandora’s box” of countries withholding metals supply to slow down their adversaries’ military, productivity or AI advancement efforts)

If this “every commodity” bull run happens, we suspect nickel and cobalt prices will run hard, off their low bases.

Especially considering all the nickel needed for the billions of autonomous AI robots forecast to be built to save time in people's homes, turbocharge productivity in the economy...

...and deliver military dominance on the battlefield.

Our latest Investment is Nico Resources (ASX:NC1).

NC1 owns 100% of one of the largest undeveloped nickel projects on the planet.

An initial reserve of 1.56 million tonnes of contained nickel, capable of producing approximately 40,000t of nickel and 3,000t of cobalt annually...

For at least 42 years.

NC1 just raised $3.76M at 30c/share, which equates to a market cap of $41M.

... but back in 2022, when everybody loved nickel for electric vehicle batteries and the nickel price was spiking, NC1 traded as high as $2 per share.

(the past performance of NC1 is not and should not be taken as an indicator of future performance)

Our Investment in NC1 is essentially like a leveraged bet on the nickel price surging, and the economics of NC1’s asset improving significantly in parallel.

We think NC1’s Tier 1 asset is something that a major mining company would want to own at some point - given the long term stable cash flows it could spin off once in production (more on that asset and economics in the link below).

After 3 years in the proverbial “sin bin” of investor portfolios, we think battery metals like nickel are about to make a big comeback...

(there’s probably about a tonne of nickel in this image - our estimates only - please don't hold us to this)

So whether the guys in this video will end up holding a vacuum cleaner in the home, carrying a box in a warehouse or waving around an AK-47 on the battlefield....

The autonomous AI robots are coming...

Read the deep dive note via the link below where we cover:

• The 9 reasons we just Invested in NC1, taking a long term view,
• our “Big Bet” for our Investment
• outline our Investment Memo;
• what we want to see NC1 execute on over the coming 12 months.

Read more: Our Latest Investment: Nico Resources (ASX: NC1)

American West Metals (ASX:AW1)

Humans will need to mine more copper in the next 18 years than we have mined in our entire recorded history.

This is just to meet the forecast demand of AI data centres, grid upgrades, chips, weapons systems and electrification.

That's SIX new Tier 1 copper mines coming online every year, for the next 25 years.

(good luck with that).

Two weeks ago the copper price hit the highest it has been in its history.

American West Metals (ASX:AW1) now has a resource of 28.2Mt @ 1.0% Cu and 3.3g/t Ag (276Kt of copper and 3.0Moz of silver) after a resource upgrade this week.

AW1’s copper project is at an advanced stage, with a PFS due this quarter, and 80% of CAPEX for development already secured.

(Mining supermajors BHP and Antofagasta have both previously JV’d into this project, pulling out only after copper prices tanked - so it's potentially large enough for the mining big dogs to be interested)

We originally Invested in AW1 back in October 2025 because it has the biggest and only indium resource in the USA.

Indium is named by the USA as a critical mineral.

Indium is used in things like infrared detectors, night vision systems, missile guidance systems, Radar systems and F-35 fighter jets.

We originally Invested in AW1 late last year because we thought the copper asset more than justified AW1’s valuation, which gave us a “free kick” at the indium asset.

That was three months ago when copper was trading at ~US$4.9/lb.

Now copper is at an all-time high and is climbing quickly...

Read more: AW1: Copper Resource Upgrade plus USA Critical Minerals... and some silver too.

Watch more:

Storm Project - Environmentally Friendly Copper Processing This is a couple of months old, but we came across it while doing a deeper dive into AW1’s copper resource upgrade this week

While also going deep into AW1’s copper asset, we noticed that David Broughton has been a technical advisor to AW1’s partner Aston Bay Holdings on this project.

David previously worked for billionaire financier and mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland (check him out presenting in Saudi Arabia below).

David is co-credited with the discovery of some of the world’s largest copper discoveries.

You can watch him talking technical about AW1’s asset here, and what he sees in it.

Viking Minerals (ASX:VKA)

We think “the USA rapidly rebuilding domestic critical minerals supply chains” is going to be one of the biggest investment themes of 2026.

Tungsten is a critical military mineral, and is currently trading at all time highs.

The USA has zero domestic supply of tungsten.

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

(Source)

As critical minerals supply chains violently transition from ‘globalisation’ to ‘localisation’, once again the USA has found itself caught napping on tungsten in recent decades.

One of the US Department of War’s top critical and strategic mineral priorities is therefore developing a domestic source for tungsten.

Five weeks ago we added a new small cap tungsten Investment Viking Minerals (ASX:VKA).

VKA is acquiring historically producing, high grade tungsten assets in Nevada, USA, just 200km away from the USA’s future national critical minerals stockpile.

VKA is capped at ~$17M, and is backed by the same team that delivered us success in Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY), now capped at $80M.

This week VKA announced the acquisition of ~2,816m of historical drilling data - 68 drill holes (8 diamond and 60 percussion) across three of its targets.

Getting this old data is a big technical shortcut, likely saving months of fieldwork and exploration capital.

VKA has been active on the newsflow front in 2026, see our full deep dive in the link below, more on why we Invested in VKA, and what we want to see next from the company:

Read more: Tungsten at all time highs. VKA acquires historical tungsten drill data for its ground - saving months of work and exploration spend.

OneView Healthcare (ASX:ONE)

Looks like the market likes what our medical-tech Investment OneView Healthcare (ASX:ONE) has been cooking up over the last couple of months.

ONE’s share price has moved from a low of 16.5c in late October to ~40c now:

(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.

So on Friday we thought we’d cover our “view” of what could be making the ONE share price keep moving up and up...

And will it keep going?

We have one view - find out in the link below.

Read more: ONE: share price going up - is this why?

Iondrive (ASX:ION) - Investor Webinar and Corporate Presentation

ION is our Investment in the minerals recycling and processing tech space.

ION had some changes to management this week with Lewis Utting appointed CEO as the company enters its next phase of execution, scale up, and market strategy.

Lewis had been serving as Commercial Director at ION since November 2024, so already knows his way around the business.

Lewis is adept at running ASX small caps - he was the former MD of SciDev (ASX: SDV) (wastewater treatment) - while Lewis was MD the stock went from 6.5c to $1.

So he also knows his way around markets. Great to see him take on the CEO role.

(The past performance of SDV is not an indicator of the future performance of ION)

Watch his first webinar as CEO this week on the link below:

Iondrive (ASX:ION) - Investor Webinar - 19 January 2026

Bloomberg - Poland is planning to accelerate its gold purchases as a strategic geopolitical hedge, further solidifying its position as one of the world's most aggressive sovereign gold buyers.

FT - Gold recorded its best weekly gain since 2008, soaring close to US$5,000 an ounce as the Greenland situation plus threats of tariffs against European allies trigger movement from the dollar into safe-haven assets.

SCMP - This editorial suggests that China is leveraging its dominance over silver supply as a strategic industrial weapon against the US, capitalising on the metal’s essential role in green energy and advanced military technology.

Bloomberg - Silver pushed through the historic $100 per ounce milestone for the first time as intensifying global instability including the Greenland crisis and deepening US-China trade friction, triggers a massive rush into silver and gold.

Bloomberg - Silver and gold reached new record highs on the back of escalating diplomatic tensions between the US and the EU over Greenland (or is that Iceland...) which fueled movement of capital to the safety of the precious metals market.

X (@tparsi) - Canadian PM Mark Carney gave a rather blunt speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a bit of a change from the traditional diplomatic answers we are used to hearing on the global stage.

Bloomberg - Rare earths producer Lynas is in talks with the US government to establish a price floor, aiming to protect domestic supply chains from the extreme market volatility caused by Chinese production dominance.

The Hill - The Trump State Department convened a critical minerals summit in Greenland to accelerate the development of the island’s vast untapped resources as a strategic alternative to Chinese supply chains.

FT (Opinion) - Rare earths have become the defining symbol of the 2025 global trade war as the West scrambles to break China’s near-total dominance over the essential minerals required for modern military and green technologies.

The Hill - The Trump administration is hosting a high-stakes critical minerals summit in Greenland to challenge China’s resource monopoly and assert American influence over the island’s vast, untapped strategic deposits.

FT - The US government has unveiled a US$1.6BN investment & loan into an Oklahoma based miner, seeking to shield domestic industry from price shocks and supply disruptions as geopolitical tensions with China and the EU escalate.

X (@ekwufinance) - Lukas posted that there are massive deficits possible over the next decade, unsurprisingly as a result of decades of underinvestment (lack of supply coming online) and increased demand (EV’s, Robot’s, Electrification etc) for copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt.

AFR - A rebound in lithium prices is sparking renewed hope for the restart of mothballed mines as producers look to capitalize on recovering demand for electric vehicle battery materials.

The Oregon Group - Anthony Milewski wrote that tightening global supplies and surging demand from the electric vehicle sector have analysts predicting nickel prices could rally toward the US$25,000 mark in 2026 (an increase of ~50% from the start of this year).

This would be a nice boost for our Investment in NC1 that we added to our portfolio during the week.

Bloomberg - Chile's Mining Council has warned that significant copper supply increases are still years away, increasing fears of prolonged global shortages as current production fails to meet the demands of the green energy transition.

PRESENTATION: The dawn of the copper age (Robert Friedland’s presentation at the Future Minerals Forum 2026)

GEN posted that their management were recently in China for a week, meeting with Hunan Steel Group and China Minmetals Corporation.

ONE posted that their technology had gone live in 25 rooms at Citizens Health in Kansas, this is part of Citizens Medical Center, Inc (CMCI), the largest health care organisation in northwest Kansas.

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.