August 13, 2026
Editor’s Note: I’ve been speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference every year since 2012, and with metals and miners running, I think this year’s gathering could be one of the most important yet. Take a look at the 2026 lineup and reserve your seat here before the conference fills up. —Nick
Here’s what was covered in episode 376:
Macro Musings - Gerardo was back this week, the summer doldrums are starting to fade, and the metals complex continues to improve.
Copper remains the strongest of the three major metals we follow. It has backed off slightly from the all-time highs above $6.90 per pound that Nick discussed last week, but the longer-term chart remains extremely bullish. Gold is also repairing itself. It successfully defended the $4,000 area during the summer correction, never reached Nick’s next downside target around $3,930, and has since moved back toward the $4,350–$4,375 area that Nick has been watching as the next important technical hurdle.
Nick thinks gold needs to hold that area before the chart can really reestablish its bullish trend. If it does, $4,500–$4,550 becomes the next logical target. Volatility has also increased, meaning $50–$100 daily swings should become increasingly normal as the market works through this range.
Silver has improved substantially as well. Two weeks ago, Gerardo said it needed to defend roughly $55–$56. It has since traded into the mid-$60s and briefly touched approximately $66.
The macro improvement continues to come from the dollar rather than the bond market. Treasury yields remain elevated, particularly farther out on the curve, while the DXY has broken below 100. Nick said gold is increasingly taking its cue from the dollar rather than moving inversely with Treasury yields as tightly as it did earlier in the year.
Nick also pushed back on the criticism Kevin Warsh has received for refusing to provide the kind of forward guidance markets became accustomed to under previous Fed chairs. Financial media outlets have complained that Warsh’s communication is confusing or inadequate, but Nick pointed out that the market itself seems relatively comfortable. The S&P 500 has continued hitting record highs, copper recently reached record highs, earnings have been strong, and market leadership is broadening beyond a handful of AI and technology stocks.
Inflation continues to oscillate rather than collapse. After running above 4% earlier this summer, the latest monthly readings have moderated toward the mid-3% range. Nick expects inflation to remain around there for a while because oil, war, tariffs, currencies, and other inputs continue moving in both directions.
The Fed futures market increasingly agrees that Warsh will sit tight. Nick said the probability of no September rate hike had risen to roughly 65%, compared with around 50% a month earlier, while the chance of a quarter-point hike was down to about 34%. October is now also leaning toward no action. The market is currently pricing the next quarter-point hike for December.
Weak employment gives the Fed cover to wait. July nonfarm payrolls reportedly fell by 23,000, while economic growth remains modest. Nick’s expectation is therefore relatively simple: probably no Fed action for the next couple of meetings.
Market Takes - The bigger policy story may be what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is doing outside the Fed.
Gerardo described Bessent’s recent actions in foreign currency and bond markets as a form of quasi-QE. The administration has little ability to force long-term U.S. yields materially lower given the debt situation, so Gerardo expects Bessent to continue finding creative ways to intervene elsewhere.
Nick agreed that Treasury intervention has contributed to the weaker dollar. If the U.S. Treasury is using taxpayer dollars to support another currency — in this case the Japanese yen — the dollar mechanically becomes weaker against that currency. A softer dollar has the added benefit of supporting stocks and other assets heading into the midterm elections.
The result so far has been exactly that: record stock prices, higher copper, improving gold, and generally better conditions for asset owners.
The critical-minerals theme also took another major step forward after last week’s episode.
Nick noted that after Trump met with mining and processing executives, the administration announced roughly $3 billion of new support across critical-mineral supply chains. That included direct investments, loans, and other support for companies involved in strategic materials including scandium and tungsten.
Money is also beginning to flow toward the human-capital problem. The U.S. does not have enough mining engineers, metallurgists, or rare-earth separation expertise to rebuild these supply chains at scale. Gerardo highlighted significant new support headed toward institutions such as the Colorado School of Mines, where enrollment in relevant engineering programs has declined dramatically from previous levels.
Both Nick and Gerardo view that as constructive. The U.S. cannot seriously reduce Chinese dominance of critical and strategic minerals without dramatically increasing not just mines and processing plants, but the number of people who actually know how to build and operate them.
They are less convinced Washington is choosing the right companies to fund. Nick cited Westwater Resources as one company receiving renewed market attention after the government announcements despite being a name he personally would not invest in. That creates another opportunity: if indiscriminate federal support can move weaker companies sharply higher, quality companies with legitimate projects and management teams may have considerably more upside as the theme develops.
The larger takeaway remains the same as last week: this is still early. Government policy is accelerating, capital is arriving, and Washington now clearly recognizes the problem, but creating an entire domestic mining, processing, metallurgy, and manufacturing ecosystem will take years.
Bizarro Banter - Politics became increasingly polarized, military readiness became harder to ignore, AI got stranger, and Gerardo returned from vacation with some pent-up ranting to unload.
Gerardo started with the increasingly strange political landscape heading into the midterms. On the Democratic side, socialist and progressive candidates continue making gains in certain urban enclaves, while more extreme candidates are being tested elsewhere. On the Republican side, Trump-backed candidates continue dominating primaries, often requiring candidates to seek the president’s blessing to remain politically viable.
Nick pointed to the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary as an example of where the more aggressive socialist wing met resistance. Francesca Hong ran on a far-left platform and campaigned alongside self-described socialist Hasan Piker, but ultimately lost to a more conventional Democrat.
Nick thinks the actual constituency for these socialist candidates is worth understanding. Despite being marketed as a working-class movement, support tends to come disproportionately from highly educated voters in relatively low-paying professional or academic fields rather than traditional blue-collar workers. That may place a natural limit on how far the movement can expand outside urban and university-heavy areas.
Gerardo’s broader frustration was that neither party offers much of a practical alternative. Traditional fiscal conservatism is largely absent from the Republican Party, while parts of the Democratic Party are responding to legitimate affordability problems with policies Gerardo and Nick believe would create different problems rather than solve the existing ones.
The discussion then moved to government corruption, the Epstein files, Todd Blanche, and the increasingly blurred lines between public information and private financial advantage.
Nick and Gerardo both objected to the idea of people paying for advance access to market-moving presidential statements. Nick argued that presidential communications are inherently public information and should not be available early to paying subscribers or investors. Given Trump’s ability to move markets with a single announcement, there is obvious value to hedge funds and traders in receiving those statements before everyone else.
Nick also joked that the repeated Sunday ceasefires during the Iran war had become almost predictable enough to trade, repeatedly arriving just before global futures markets opened and producing Monday rallies.
That transitioned into a much more serious issue: U.S. missile inventories.
Nick cited reporting that the United States has used more than 1,500 Patriot air-defense interceptors during the Iran war and that replacing them could take more than two years. Current inventories are reportedly fewer than 1,700 missiles, meaning the U.S. has burned through an extraordinary portion of its stockpile in only a matter of months.
That matters far beyond Iran. Fewer air-defense missiles change the strategic calculus around Ukraine, Taiwan, China, Russia, and North Korea. They may also force U.S. aircraft and service members closer to hostile territory if longer-range weapons become scarce.
And it loops directly back into the critical-minerals thesis. Those missile systems require gallium, germanium, tellurium, rare earths, and numerous other strategic materials that the United States still cannot adequately source or process domestically.
Gerardo also highlighted reports of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln enduring extraordinarily long deployments and difficult conditions, including multiple sailors reportedly jumping overboard. His larger argument was that maintaining the world’s strongest military requires more than spending money. It requires sufficient equipment, ammunition, logistics, leadership, and reasonable conditions for the people actually serving.
Before moving into the premium section, Nick closed on a more personal note with the passing of “Jim the Barber,” his childhood barber in Elkton, Maryland. Jim was 95, a former Marine, and spent decades running the kind of small-town barbershop where everyone knew everybody. Nick remembered paying $6 cash for a haircut there as a kid versus roughly $35–$40 today — one final reminder that official inflation statistics do not always capture how dramatically the cost of everyday life has changed over a generation.
Premium Portfolio Picks - Gerardo opened the premium section by explaining where he believes the junior-resource market is right now and why the boring part of the cycle may finally be ending.
His preferred approach is to get into high-quality junior companies early — often four, five, or six months before the market cares — and slowly establish a meaningful position while liquidity is low. That requires knowing exactly what management intends to accomplish over the following six to twelve months and making sure the company is adding value even before drilling begins.
Permitting, geophysics, surface work, community relations, targeting, metallurgy, and financing all matter because those steps determine whether the eventual drill program has a legitimate chance of creating a discovery.
A number of companies that appeared dead over the summer are now up 20%, 30%, or more over the past few weeks. Part of that is improving sentiment in gold, silver, copper, uranium, and potentially lithium. But another part is that many of these companies are finally reaching the point where drilling and assay results begin arriving.
Gerardo thinks that matters heading into September and conference season. Once investors return to their desks, news flow increases and selling dries up, good companies can move quickly. His advice was to make sure positions are established before the obvious catalyst arrives rather than trying to chase illiquid stocks after the market wakes up.
Nick agreed but said he has not bought anything over the past week because many resource stocks have already rallied sharply. He would rather wait for pullbacks before deploying additional capital.
Even after the recent rebound, however, the major mining indexes and ETFs remain below their January and February levels. Copper and gold have improved substantially, the North American supply-chain thesis remains intact, and building new mines still takes anywhere from the mid-teens to several decades depending on jurisdiction.
Nick referenced the final chapter of Mineral War, which discusses how the West will need to develop new sources of antimony, lithium, and other critical metals. Three companies specifically cited in that discussion — Southern Cross Gold (TSX-V: SXGC)(OTC: SXGCF), Perpetua Resources (TSX: PPTA)(NASDAQ: PPTA), and PMET Resources (TSX: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) — also happen to be long-standing Digest Publishing recommendations or investments.
Those examples illustrate what Nick and Gerardo are trying to accomplish with early-stage investing. Perpetua was originally recommended more than a decade ago when it was still Midas Gold. Southern Cross emerged from Mawson and went on to define a major discovery at Sunday Creek. PMET was originally financed by their group around C$0.16 and again in the C$0.30 range before eventually trading up to C$17.
None of those stories happened overnight, and none of them are finished. Perpetua is now under construction. Southern Cross continues aggressive drilling. PMET continues advancing economic studies, metallurgy, offtakes, and development work.
Gerardo’s first new name this week was AU Gold (TSX-V: AUGC)(OTC: AUGCF), a tiny Australian explorer that their group previously financed through Private Placement Intel.
AU Gold controls a past-producing gold-antimony district in Australia and currently carries a market capitalization of only about C$7.3 million. The company has taken longer than initially expected to begin drilling, but Gerardo views the delay positively because the exploration team continues identifying additional gold-rich targets.
Rather than spend a few million dollars drilling prematurely, management has continued refining those targets so the first program tests what it believes are the best opportunities in the district.
Drilling is currently expected around October. Gerardo believes the company may need another financing within the next month or two and said Private Placement Intel subscribers will be kept informed if that opportunity materializes.
The previous financing was heavily oversubscribed. Gerardo and Nick participated personally, as did members of their group.
Gerardo stressed the asymmetry. At a C$7.3 million valuation, a legitimate discovery in a past-producing gold-antimony district could produce a dramatic rerating. Southern Cross is obviously an exceptional outcome, not a base case, but it demonstrates what can happen when a tiny explorer gets the geology right.
Gerardo considers AU Gold a worthwhile early-stage speculation for investors looking for gold and antimony exposure ahead of drilling.
Next was Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF), which finally delivered the first assays from its Swedish gold program.
Gerardo described the first batch using a baseball analogy: not a home run yet, but a solid double with a runner in scoring position and nobody out.
The first five reported holes all intersected gold across a roughly 650-meter strike length. Hannan believes the mineralized corridor could ultimately extend for approximately seven kilometers, although much more drilling will obviously be required to prove that.
The first results included shallow, continuous mineralization such as approximately 9.2 meters of 1.3 grams per tonne gold, along with narrower high-grade intervals including roughly 0.6 meters of 27.8 grams per tonne gold.
Gerardo likes the combination of shallow mineralization, continuity, and higher-grade shoots. Systems capable of maintaining gram-per-tonne mineralization near surface over kilometer-scale strike lengths while producing higher-grade structures can ultimately become multimillion-ounce deposits.
The most important assays may still be coming.
Hole 6 was drilled to approximately 214 meters, significantly deeper than most of the initial holes. Gerardo said the company encountered the prospective host rock essentially from the beginning of the hole to the end and described it as strongly mineralized.
That does not mean the entire 214 meters will assay as economic gold. But if assays demonstrate multiple meaningful mineralized intervals at depth — particularly if higher-grade zones are present — it would provide important evidence that the system extends vertically rather than simply forming a shallow surface feature.
Those results are expected in the coming weeks. Hannan is also planning a Phase 2 program following additional geophysical work designed to better define the higher-grade shoots.
Gerardo’s conclusion: Hannan did what it said it would do, drilled quickly, hit gold in every hole reported so far, demonstrated meaningful continuity, and may still have its best initial holes waiting in the lab.
Nick then highlighted two names he already owns that he believes remain undervalued.
The first was Daura Gold (TSX-V: DGC)(OTC: DGCOF).
Daura trades well below where it did earlier in the year despite having more assets and more geological information today. The company initially attracted attention because of its Peru exposure and proximity to Highlander Silver, but its Cerro Bayo program in Argentina subsequently delivered what Nick believes were geologically successful first-pass drill results during the dead of summer.
The market largely ignored those results, but Daura CEO Mark Sumner, Latin Metals CEO Keith Henderson, and other geologists who reviewed the work were encouraged by what they saw.
Nick expects Daura to have drilling activity in both Peru and Argentina during the second half of this year and into early next year. The company will need additional capital, but at its current valuation Nick believes the market is giving investors very little credit for the progress already made or the catalysts ahead.
Nick’s final name was North Shore Uranium (TSX-V: NSU)(OTC: NSURF).
North Shore carries a market capitalization of only about C$18 million despite controlling a historical resource of roughly 11 million pounds of uranium in New Mexico.
The project also comes with substantial historical infrastructure. It was once advanced far enough that a mine shaft had already been sunk before development stopped decades ago.
The current team has prior uranium-sector success and recently completed its first phase of RC drilling. Formal results are still pending, but Nick said the team appears encouraged by what it observed from downhole gamma measurements and other exploration work.
Those results should begin arriving over the next few weeks.
With uranium prices beginning to improve again, strong long-term fundamentals, an existing historical resource, legacy infrastructure, upcoming drill results, and almost no market attention, Nick thinks North Shore remains significantly undervalued at its current C$18 million market capitalization.
Gerardo closed with the larger message: the resource market is starting to perk up. Investors who found the last few months boring may soon discover how quickly junior miners can move once drilling, assays, improving commodity prices, conference season, and returning capital arrive at the same time.
August 13, 2026
Editor’s Note: I’ve been speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference every year since 2012, and with metals and miners running, I think this year’s gathering could be one of the most important yet. Take a look at the 2026 lineup and reserve your seat here before the conference fills up. —Nick
Here’s what was covered in episode 376:
Macro Musings - Gerardo was back this week, the summer doldrums are starting to fade, and the metals complex continues to improve.
Copper remains the strongest of the three major metals we follow. It has backed off slightly from the all-time highs above $6.90 per pound that Nick discussed last week, but the longer-term chart remains extremely bullish. Gold is also repairing itself. It successfully defended the $4,000 area during the summer correction, never reached Nick’s next downside target around $3,930, and has since moved back toward the $4,350–$4,375 area that Nick has been watching as the next important technical hurdle.
Nick thinks gold needs to hold that area before the chart can really reestablish its bullish trend. If it does, $4,500–$4,550 becomes the next logical target. Volatility has also increased, meaning $50–$100 daily swings should become increasingly normal as the market works through this range.
Silver has improved substantially as well. Two weeks ago, Gerardo said it needed to defend roughly $55–$56. It has since traded into the mid-$60s and briefly touched approximately $66.
The macro improvement continues to come from the dollar rather than the bond market. Treasury yields remain elevated, particularly farther out on the curve, while the DXY has broken below 100. Nick said gold is increasingly taking its cue from the dollar rather than moving inversely with Treasury yields as tightly as it did earlier in the year.
Nick also pushed back on the criticism Kevin Warsh has received for refusing to provide the kind of forward guidance markets became accustomed to under previous Fed chairs. Financial media outlets have complained that Warsh’s communication is confusing or inadequate, but Nick pointed out that the market itself seems relatively comfortable. The S&P 500 has continued hitting record highs, copper recently reached record highs, earnings have been strong, and market leadership is broadening beyond a handful of AI and technology stocks.
Inflation continues to oscillate rather than collapse. After running above 4% earlier this summer, the latest monthly readings have moderated toward the mid-3% range. Nick expects inflation to remain around there for a while because oil, war, tariffs, currencies, and other inputs continue moving in both directions.
The Fed futures market increasingly agrees that Warsh will sit tight. Nick said the probability of no September rate hike had risen to roughly 65%, compared with around 50% a month earlier, while the chance of a quarter-point hike was down to about 34%. October is now also leaning toward no action. The market is currently pricing the next quarter-point hike for December.
Weak employment gives the Fed cover to wait. July nonfarm payrolls reportedly fell by 23,000, while economic growth remains modest. Nick’s expectation is therefore relatively simple: probably no Fed action for the next couple of meetings.
Market Takes - The bigger policy story may be what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is doing outside the Fed.
Gerardo described Bessent’s recent actions in foreign currency and bond markets as a form of quasi-QE. The administration has little ability to force long-term U.S. yields materially lower given the debt situation, so Gerardo expects Bessent to continue finding creative ways to intervene elsewhere.
Nick agreed that Treasury intervention has contributed to the weaker dollar. If the U.S. Treasury is using taxpayer dollars to support another currency — in this case the Japanese yen — the dollar mechanically becomes weaker against that currency. A softer dollar has the added benefit of supporting stocks and other assets heading into the midterm elections.
The result so far has been exactly that: record stock prices, higher copper, improving gold, and generally better conditions for asset owners.
The critical-minerals theme also took another major step forward after last week’s episode.
Nick noted that after Trump met with mining and processing executives, the administration announced roughly $3 billion of new support across critical-mineral supply chains. That included direct investments, loans, and other support for companies involved in strategic materials including scandium and tungsten.
Money is also beginning to flow toward the human-capital problem. The U.S. does not have enough mining engineers, metallurgists, or rare-earth separation expertise to rebuild these supply chains at scale. Gerardo highlighted significant new support headed toward institutions such as the Colorado School of Mines, where enrollment in relevant engineering programs has declined dramatically from previous levels.
Both Nick and Gerardo view that as constructive. The U.S. cannot seriously reduce Chinese dominance of critical and strategic minerals without dramatically increasing not just mines and processing plants, but the number of people who actually know how to build and operate them.
They are less convinced Washington is choosing the right companies to fund. Nick cited Westwater Resources as one company receiving renewed market attention after the government announcements despite being a name he personally would not invest in. That creates another opportunity: if indiscriminate federal support can move weaker companies sharply higher, quality companies with legitimate projects and management teams may have considerably more upside as the theme develops.
The larger takeaway remains the same as last week: this is still early. Government policy is accelerating, capital is arriving, and Washington now clearly recognizes the problem, but creating an entire domestic mining, processing, metallurgy, and manufacturing ecosystem will take years.
Bizarro Banter - Politics became increasingly polarized, military readiness became harder to ignore, AI got stranger, and Gerardo returned from vacation with some pent-up ranting to unload.
Gerardo started with the increasingly strange political landscape heading into the midterms. On the Democratic side, socialist and progressive candidates continue making gains in certain urban enclaves, while more extreme candidates are being tested elsewhere. On the Republican side, Trump-backed candidates continue dominating primaries, often requiring candidates to seek the president’s blessing to remain politically viable.
Nick pointed to the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary as an example of where the more aggressive socialist wing met resistance. Francesca Hong ran on a far-left platform and campaigned alongside self-described socialist Hasan Piker, but ultimately lost to a more conventional Democrat.
Nick thinks the actual constituency for these socialist candidates is worth understanding. Despite being marketed as a working-class movement, support tends to come disproportionately from highly educated voters in relatively low-paying professional or academic fields rather than traditional blue-collar workers. That may place a natural limit on how far the movement can expand outside urban and university-heavy areas.
Gerardo’s broader frustration was that neither party offers much of a practical alternative. Traditional fiscal conservatism is largely absent from the Republican Party, while parts of the Democratic Party are responding to legitimate affordability problems with policies Gerardo and Nick believe would create different problems rather than solve the existing ones.
The discussion then moved to government corruption, the Epstein files, Todd Blanche, and the increasingly blurred lines between public information and private financial advantage.
Nick and Gerardo both objected to the idea of people paying for advance access to market-moving presidential statements. Nick argued that presidential communications are inherently public information and should not be available early to paying subscribers or investors. Given Trump’s ability to move markets with a single announcement, there is obvious value to hedge funds and traders in receiving those statements before everyone else.
Nick also joked that the repeated Sunday ceasefires during the Iran war had become almost predictable enough to trade, repeatedly arriving just before global futures markets opened and producing Monday rallies.
That transitioned into a much more serious issue: U.S. missile inventories.
Nick cited reporting that the United States has used more than 1,500 Patriot air-defense interceptors during the Iran war and that replacing them could take more than two years. Current inventories are reportedly fewer than 1,700 missiles, meaning the U.S. has burned through an extraordinary portion of its stockpile in only a matter of months.
That matters far beyond Iran. Fewer air-defense missiles change the strategic calculus around Ukraine, Taiwan, China, Russia, and North Korea. They may also force U.S. aircraft and service members closer to hostile territory if longer-range weapons become scarce.
And it loops directly back into the critical-minerals thesis. Those missile systems require gallium, germanium, tellurium, rare earths, and numerous other strategic materials that the United States still cannot adequately source or process domestically.
Gerardo also highlighted reports of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln enduring extraordinarily long deployments and difficult conditions, including multiple sailors reportedly jumping overboard. His larger argument was that maintaining the world’s strongest military requires more than spending money. It requires sufficient equipment, ammunition, logistics, leadership, and reasonable conditions for the people actually serving.
Before moving into the premium section, Nick closed on a more personal note with the passing of “Jim the Barber,” his childhood barber in Elkton, Maryland. Jim was 95, a former Marine, and spent decades running the kind of small-town barbershop where everyone knew everybody. Nick remembered paying $6 cash for a haircut there as a kid versus roughly $35–$40 today — one final reminder that official inflation statistics do not always capture how dramatically the cost of everyday life has changed over a generation.
Premium Portfolio Picks - Gerardo opened the premium section by explaining where he believes the junior-resource market is right now and why the boring part of the cycle may finally be ending.
His preferred approach is to get into high-quality junior companies early — often four, five, or six months before the market cares — and slowly establish a meaningful position while liquidity is low. That requires knowing exactly what management intends to accomplish over the following six to twelve months and making sure the company is adding value even before drilling begins.
Permitting, geophysics, surface work, community relations, targeting, metallurgy, and financing all matter because those steps determine whether the eventual drill program has a legitimate chance of creating a discovery.
A number of companies that appeared dead over the summer are now up 20%, 30%, or more over the past few weeks. Part of that is improving sentiment in gold, silver, copper, uranium, and potentially lithium. But another part is that many of these companies are finally reaching the point where drilling and assay results begin arriving.
Gerardo thinks that matters heading into September and conference season. Once investors return to their desks, news flow increases and selling dries up, good companies can move quickly. His advice was to make sure positions are established before the obvious catalyst arrives rather than trying to chase illiquid stocks after the market wakes up.
Nick agreed but said he has not bought anything over the past week because many resource stocks have already rallied sharply. He would rather wait for pullbacks before deploying additional capital.
Even after the recent rebound, however, the major mining indexes and ETFs remain below their January and February levels. Copper and gold have improved substantially, the North American supply-chain thesis remains intact, and building new mines still takes anywhere from the mid-teens to several decades depending on jurisdiction.
Nick referenced the final chapter of Mineral War, which discusses how the West will need to develop new sources of antimony, lithium, and other critical metals. Three companies specifically cited in that discussion — Southern Cross Gold (TSX-V: SXGC)(OTC: SXGCF), Perpetua Resources (TSX: PPTA)(NASDAQ: PPTA), and PMET Resources (TSX: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) — also happen to be long-standing Digest Publishing recommendations or investments.
Those examples illustrate what Nick and Gerardo are trying to accomplish with early-stage investing. Perpetua was originally recommended more than a decade ago when it was still Midas Gold. Southern Cross emerged from Mawson and went on to define a major discovery at Sunday Creek. PMET was originally financed by their group around C$0.16 and again in the C$0.30 range before eventually trading up to C$17.
None of those stories happened overnight, and none of them are finished. Perpetua is now under construction. Southern Cross continues aggressive drilling. PMET continues advancing economic studies, metallurgy, offtakes, and development work.
Gerardo’s first new name this week was AU Gold (TSX-V: AUGC)(OTC: AUGCF), a tiny Australian explorer that their group previously financed through Private Placement Intel.
AU Gold controls a past-producing gold-antimony district in Australia and currently carries a market capitalization of only about C$7.3 million. The company has taken longer than initially expected to begin drilling, but Gerardo views the delay positively because the exploration team continues identifying additional gold-rich targets.
Rather than spend a few million dollars drilling prematurely, management has continued refining those targets so the first program tests what it believes are the best opportunities in the district.
Drilling is currently expected around October. Gerardo believes the company may need another financing within the next month or two and said Private Placement Intel subscribers will be kept informed if that opportunity materializes.
The previous financing was heavily oversubscribed. Gerardo and Nick participated personally, as did members of their group.
Gerardo stressed the asymmetry. At a C$7.3 million valuation, a legitimate discovery in a past-producing gold-antimony district could produce a dramatic rerating. Southern Cross is obviously an exceptional outcome, not a base case, but it demonstrates what can happen when a tiny explorer gets the geology right.
Gerardo considers AU Gold a worthwhile early-stage speculation for investors looking for gold and antimony exposure ahead of drilling.
Next was Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF), which finally delivered the first assays from its Swedish gold program.
Gerardo described the first batch using a baseball analogy: not a home run yet, but a solid double with a runner in scoring position and nobody out.
The first five reported holes all intersected gold across a roughly 650-meter strike length. Hannan believes the mineralized corridor could ultimately extend for approximately seven kilometers, although much more drilling will obviously be required to prove that.
The first results included shallow, continuous mineralization such as approximately 9.2 meters of 1.3 grams per tonne gold, along with narrower high-grade intervals including roughly 0.6 meters of 27.8 grams per tonne gold.
Gerardo likes the combination of shallow mineralization, continuity, and higher-grade shoots. Systems capable of maintaining gram-per-tonne mineralization near surface over kilometer-scale strike lengths while producing higher-grade structures can ultimately become multimillion-ounce deposits.
The most important assays may still be coming.
Hole 6 was drilled to approximately 214 meters, significantly deeper than most of the initial holes. Gerardo said the company encountered the prospective host rock essentially from the beginning of the hole to the end and described it as strongly mineralized.
That does not mean the entire 214 meters will assay as economic gold. But if assays demonstrate multiple meaningful mineralized intervals at depth — particularly if higher-grade zones are present — it would provide important evidence that the system extends vertically rather than simply forming a shallow surface feature.
Those results are expected in the coming weeks. Hannan is also planning a Phase 2 program following additional geophysical work designed to better define the higher-grade shoots.
Gerardo’s conclusion: Hannan did what it said it would do, drilled quickly, hit gold in every hole reported so far, demonstrated meaningful continuity, and may still have its best initial holes waiting in the lab.
Nick then highlighted two names he already owns that he believes remain undervalued.
The first was Daura Gold (TSX-V: DGC)(OTC: DGCOF).
Daura trades well below where it did earlier in the year despite having more assets and more geological information today. The company initially attracted attention because of its Peru exposure and proximity to Highlander Silver, but its Cerro Bayo program in Argentina subsequently delivered what Nick believes were geologically successful first-pass drill results during the dead of summer.
The market largely ignored those results, but Daura CEO Mark Sumner, Latin Metals CEO Keith Henderson, and other geologists who reviewed the work were encouraged by what they saw.
Nick expects Daura to have drilling activity in both Peru and Argentina during the second half of this year and into early next year. The company will need additional capital, but at its current valuation Nick believes the market is giving investors very little credit for the progress already made or the catalysts ahead.
Nick’s final name was North Shore Uranium (TSX-V: NSU)(OTC: NSURF).
North Shore carries a market capitalization of only about C$18 million despite controlling a historical resource of roughly 11 million pounds of uranium in New Mexico.
The project also comes with substantial historical infrastructure. It was once advanced far enough that a mine shaft had already been sunk before development stopped decades ago.
The current team has prior uranium-sector success and recently completed its first phase of RC drilling. Formal results are still pending, but Nick said the team appears encouraged by what it observed from downhole gamma measurements and other exploration work.
Those results should begin arriving over the next few weeks.
With uranium prices beginning to improve again, strong long-term fundamentals, an existing historical resource, legacy infrastructure, upcoming drill results, and almost no market attention, Nick thinks North Shore remains significantly undervalued at its current C$18 million market capitalization.
Gerardo closed with the larger message: the resource market is starting to perk up. Investors who found the last few months boring may soon discover how quickly junior miners can move once drilling, assays, improving commodity prices, conference season, and returning capital arrive at the same time.
August 13, 2026
Editor’s Note: I’ve been speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference every year since 2012, and with metals and miners running, I think this year’s gathering could be one of the most important yet. Take a look at the 2026 lineup and reserve your seat here before the conference fills up. —Nick
Here’s what was covered in episode 376:
Macro Musings - Gerardo was back this week, the summer doldrums are starting to fade, and the metals complex continues to improve.
Copper remains the strongest of the three major metals we follow. It has backed off slightly from the all-time highs above $6.90 per pound that Nick discussed last week, but the longer-term chart remains extremely bullish. Gold is also repairing itself. It successfully defended the $4,000 area during the summer correction, never reached Nick’s next downside target around $3,930, and has since moved back toward the $4,350–$4,375 area that Nick has been watching as the next important technical hurdle.
Nick thinks gold needs to hold that area before the chart can really reestablish its bullish trend. If it does, $4,500–$4,550 becomes the next logical target. Volatility has also increased, meaning $50–$100 daily swings should become increasingly normal as the market works through this range.
Silver has improved substantially as well. Two weeks ago, Gerardo said it needed to defend roughly $55–$56. It has since traded into the mid-$60s and briefly touched approximately $66.
The macro improvement continues to come from the dollar rather than the bond market. Treasury yields remain elevated, particularly farther out on the curve, while the DXY has broken below 100. Nick said gold is increasingly taking its cue from the dollar rather than moving inversely with Treasury yields as tightly as it did earlier in the year.
Nick also pushed back on the criticism Kevin Warsh has received for refusing to provide the kind of forward guidance markets became accustomed to under previous Fed chairs. Financial media outlets have complained that Warsh’s communication is confusing or inadequate, but Nick pointed out that the market itself seems relatively comfortable. The S&P 500 has continued hitting record highs, copper recently reached record highs, earnings have been strong, and market leadership is broadening beyond a handful of AI and technology stocks.
Inflation continues to oscillate rather than collapse. After running above 4% earlier this summer, the latest monthly readings have moderated toward the mid-3% range. Nick expects inflation to remain around there for a while because oil, war, tariffs, currencies, and other inputs continue moving in both directions.
The Fed futures market increasingly agrees that Warsh will sit tight. Nick said the probability of no September rate hike had risen to roughly 65%, compared with around 50% a month earlier, while the chance of a quarter-point hike was down to about 34%. October is now also leaning toward no action. The market is currently pricing the next quarter-point hike for December.
Weak employment gives the Fed cover to wait. July nonfarm payrolls reportedly fell by 23,000, while economic growth remains modest. Nick’s expectation is therefore relatively simple: probably no Fed action for the next couple of meetings.
Market Takes - The bigger policy story may be what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is doing outside the Fed.
Gerardo described Bessent’s recent actions in foreign currency and bond markets as a form of quasi-QE. The administration has little ability to force long-term U.S. yields materially lower given the debt situation, so Gerardo expects Bessent to continue finding creative ways to intervene elsewhere.
Nick agreed that Treasury intervention has contributed to the weaker dollar. If the U.S. Treasury is using taxpayer dollars to support another currency — in this case the Japanese yen — the dollar mechanically becomes weaker against that currency. A softer dollar has the added benefit of supporting stocks and other assets heading into the midterm elections.
The result so far has been exactly that: record stock prices, higher copper, improving gold, and generally better conditions for asset owners.
The critical-minerals theme also took another major step forward after last week’s episode.
Nick noted that after Trump met with mining and processing executives, the administration announced roughly $3 billion of new support across critical-mineral supply chains. That included direct investments, loans, and other support for companies involved in strategic materials including scandium and tungsten.
Money is also beginning to flow toward the human-capital problem. The U.S. does not have enough mining engineers, metallurgists, or rare-earth separation expertise to rebuild these supply chains at scale. Gerardo highlighted significant new support headed toward institutions such as the Colorado School of Mines, where enrollment in relevant engineering programs has declined dramatically from previous levels.
Both Nick and Gerardo view that as constructive. The U.S. cannot seriously reduce Chinese dominance of critical and strategic minerals without dramatically increasing not just mines and processing plants, but the number of people who actually know how to build and operate them.
They are less convinced Washington is choosing the right companies to fund. Nick cited Westwater Resources as one company receiving renewed market attention after the government announcements despite being a name he personally would not invest in. That creates another opportunity: if indiscriminate federal support can move weaker companies sharply higher, quality companies with legitimate projects and management teams may have considerably more upside as the theme develops.
The larger takeaway remains the same as last week: this is still early. Government policy is accelerating, capital is arriving, and Washington now clearly recognizes the problem, but creating an entire domestic mining, processing, metallurgy, and manufacturing ecosystem will take years.
Bizarro Banter - Politics became increasingly polarized, military readiness became harder to ignore, AI got stranger, and Gerardo returned from vacation with some pent-up ranting to unload.
Gerardo started with the increasingly strange political landscape heading into the midterms. On the Democratic side, socialist and progressive candidates continue making gains in certain urban enclaves, while more extreme candidates are being tested elsewhere. On the Republican side, Trump-backed candidates continue dominating primaries, often requiring candidates to seek the president’s blessing to remain politically viable.
Nick pointed to the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary as an example of where the more aggressive socialist wing met resistance. Francesca Hong ran on a far-left platform and campaigned alongside self-described socialist Hasan Piker, but ultimately lost to a more conventional Democrat.
Nick thinks the actual constituency for these socialist candidates is worth understanding. Despite being marketed as a working-class movement, support tends to come disproportionately from highly educated voters in relatively low-paying professional or academic fields rather than traditional blue-collar workers. That may place a natural limit on how far the movement can expand outside urban and university-heavy areas.
Gerardo’s broader frustration was that neither party offers much of a practical alternative. Traditional fiscal conservatism is largely absent from the Republican Party, while parts of the Democratic Party are responding to legitimate affordability problems with policies Gerardo and Nick believe would create different problems rather than solve the existing ones.
The discussion then moved to government corruption, the Epstein files, Todd Blanche, and the increasingly blurred lines between public information and private financial advantage.
Nick and Gerardo both objected to the idea of people paying for advance access to market-moving presidential statements. Nick argued that presidential communications are inherently public information and should not be available early to paying subscribers or investors. Given Trump’s ability to move markets with a single announcement, there is obvious value to hedge funds and traders in receiving those statements before everyone else.
Nick also joked that the repeated Sunday ceasefires during the Iran war had become almost predictable enough to trade, repeatedly arriving just before global futures markets opened and producing Monday rallies.
That transitioned into a much more serious issue: U.S. missile inventories.
Nick cited reporting that the United States has used more than 1,500 Patriot air-defense interceptors during the Iran war and that replacing them could take more than two years. Current inventories are reportedly fewer than 1,700 missiles, meaning the U.S. has burned through an extraordinary portion of its stockpile in only a matter of months.
That matters far beyond Iran. Fewer air-defense missiles change the strategic calculus around Ukraine, Taiwan, China, Russia, and North Korea. They may also force U.S. aircraft and service members closer to hostile territory if longer-range weapons become scarce.
And it loops directly back into the critical-minerals thesis. Those missile systems require gallium, germanium, tellurium, rare earths, and numerous other strategic materials that the United States still cannot adequately source or process domestically.
Gerardo also highlighted reports of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln enduring extraordinarily long deployments and difficult conditions, including multiple sailors reportedly jumping overboard. His larger argument was that maintaining the world’s strongest military requires more than spending money. It requires sufficient equipment, ammunition, logistics, leadership, and reasonable conditions for the people actually serving.
Before moving into the premium section, Nick closed on a more personal note with the passing of “Jim the Barber,” his childhood barber in Elkton, Maryland. Jim was 95, a former Marine, and spent decades running the kind of small-town barbershop where everyone knew everybody. Nick remembered paying $6 cash for a haircut there as a kid versus roughly $35–$40 today — one final reminder that official inflation statistics do not always capture how dramatically the cost of everyday life has changed over a generation.
Premium Portfolio Picks - Gerardo opened the premium section by explaining where he believes the junior-resource market is right now and why the boring part of the cycle may finally be ending.
His preferred approach is to get into high-quality junior companies early — often four, five, or six months before the market cares — and slowly establish a meaningful position while liquidity is low. That requires knowing exactly what management intends to accomplish over the following six to twelve months and making sure the company is adding value even before drilling begins.
Permitting, geophysics, surface work, community relations, targeting, metallurgy, and financing all matter because those steps determine whether the eventual drill program has a legitimate chance of creating a discovery.
A number of companies that appeared dead over the summer are now up 20%, 30%, or more over the past few weeks. Part of that is improving sentiment in gold, silver, copper, uranium, and potentially lithium. But another part is that many of these companies are finally reaching the point where drilling and assay results begin arriving.
Gerardo thinks that matters heading into September and conference season. Once investors return to their desks, news flow increases and selling dries up, good companies can move quickly. His advice was to make sure positions are established before the obvious catalyst arrives rather than trying to chase illiquid stocks after the market wakes up.
Nick agreed but said he has not bought anything over the past week because many resource stocks have already rallied sharply. He would rather wait for pullbacks before deploying additional capital.
Even after the recent rebound, however, the major mining indexes and ETFs remain below their January and February levels. Copper and gold have improved substantially, the North American supply-chain thesis remains intact, and building new mines still takes anywhere from the mid-teens to several decades depending on jurisdiction.
Nick referenced the final chapter of Mineral War, which discusses how the West will need to develop new sources of antimony, lithium, and other critical metals. Three companies specifically cited in that discussion — Southern Cross Gold (TSX-V: SXGC)(OTC: SXGCF), Perpetua Resources (TSX: PPTA)(NASDAQ: PPTA), and PMET Resources (TSX: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) — also happen to be long-standing Digest Publishing recommendations or investments.
Those examples illustrate what Nick and Gerardo are trying to accomplish with early-stage investing. Perpetua was originally recommended more than a decade ago when it was still Midas Gold. Southern Cross emerged from Mawson and went on to define a major discovery at Sunday Creek. PMET was originally financed by their group around C$0.16 and again in the C$0.30 range before eventually trading up to C$17.
None of those stories happened overnight, and none of them are finished. Perpetua is now under construction. Southern Cross continues aggressive drilling. PMET continues advancing economic studies, metallurgy, offtakes, and development work.
Gerardo’s first new name this week was AU Gold (TSX-V: AUGC)(OTC: AUGCF), a tiny Australian explorer that their group previously financed through Private Placement Intel.
AU Gold controls a past-producing gold-antimony district in Australia and currently carries a market capitalization of only about C$7.3 million. The company has taken longer than initially expected to begin drilling, but Gerardo views the delay positively because the exploration team continues identifying additional gold-rich targets.
Rather than spend a few million dollars drilling prematurely, management has continued refining those targets so the first program tests what it believes are the best opportunities in the district.
Drilling is currently expected around October. Gerardo believes the company may need another financing within the next month or two and said Private Placement Intel subscribers will be kept informed if that opportunity materializes.
The previous financing was heavily oversubscribed. Gerardo and Nick participated personally, as did members of their group.
Gerardo stressed the asymmetry. At a C$7.3 million valuation, a legitimate discovery in a past-producing gold-antimony district could produce a dramatic rerating. Southern Cross is obviously an exceptional outcome, not a base case, but it demonstrates what can happen when a tiny explorer gets the geology right.
Gerardo considers AU Gold a worthwhile early-stage speculation for investors looking for gold and antimony exposure ahead of drilling.
Next was Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF), which finally delivered the first assays from its Swedish gold program.
Gerardo described the first batch using a baseball analogy: not a home run yet, but a solid double with a runner in scoring position and nobody out.
The first five reported holes all intersected gold across a roughly 650-meter strike length. Hannan believes the mineralized corridor could ultimately extend for approximately seven kilometers, although much more drilling will obviously be required to prove that.
The first results included shallow, continuous mineralization such as approximately 9.2 meters of 1.3 grams per tonne gold, along with narrower high-grade intervals including roughly 0.6 meters of 27.8 grams per tonne gold.
Gerardo likes the combination of shallow mineralization, continuity, and higher-grade shoots. Systems capable of maintaining gram-per-tonne mineralization near surface over kilometer-scale strike lengths while producing higher-grade structures can ultimately become multimillion-ounce deposits.
The most important assays may still be coming.
Hole 6 was drilled to approximately 214 meters, significantly deeper than most of the initial holes. Gerardo said the company encountered the prospective host rock essentially from the beginning of the hole to the end and described it as strongly mineralized.
That does not mean the entire 214 meters will assay as economic gold. But if assays demonstrate multiple meaningful mineralized intervals at depth — particularly if higher-grade zones are present — it would provide important evidence that the system extends vertically rather than simply forming a shallow surface feature.
Those results are expected in the coming weeks. Hannan is also planning a Phase 2 program following additional geophysical work designed to better define the higher-grade shoots.
Gerardo’s conclusion: Hannan did what it said it would do, drilled quickly, hit gold in every hole reported so far, demonstrated meaningful continuity, and may still have its best initial holes waiting in the lab.
Nick then highlighted two names he already owns that he believes remain undervalued.
The first was Daura Gold (TSX-V: DGC)(OTC: DGCOF).
Daura trades well below where it did earlier in the year despite having more assets and more geological information today. The company initially attracted attention because of its Peru exposure and proximity to Highlander Silver, but its Cerro Bayo program in Argentina subsequently delivered what Nick believes were geologically successful first-pass drill results during the dead of summer.
The market largely ignored those results, but Daura CEO Mark Sumner, Latin Metals CEO Keith Henderson, and other geologists who reviewed the work were encouraged by what they saw.
Nick expects Daura to have drilling activity in both Peru and Argentina during the second half of this year and into early next year. The company will need additional capital, but at its current valuation Nick believes the market is giving investors very little credit for the progress already made or the catalysts ahead.
Nick’s final name was North Shore Uranium (TSX-V: NSU)(OTC: NSURF).
North Shore carries a market capitalization of only about C$18 million despite controlling a historical resource of roughly 11 million pounds of uranium in New Mexico.
The project also comes with substantial historical infrastructure. It was once advanced far enough that a mine shaft had already been sunk before development stopped decades ago.
The current team has prior uranium-sector success and recently completed its first phase of RC drilling. Formal results are still pending, but Nick said the team appears encouraged by what it observed from downhole gamma measurements and other exploration work.
Those results should begin arriving over the next few weeks.
With uranium prices beginning to improve again, strong long-term fundamentals, an existing historical resource, legacy infrastructure, upcoming drill results, and almost no market attention, Nick thinks North Shore remains significantly undervalued at its current C$18 million market capitalization.
Gerardo closed with the larger message: the resource market is starting to perk up. Investors who found the last few months boring may soon discover how quickly junior miners can move once drilling, assays, improving commodity prices, conference season, and returning capital arrive at the same time.