#1 Digging for Dollars: Has the Junior Mining Market Finally Broken Its Months-Long Slump?

CEO.CA Sep 21, 2026 45:24

Summary

Junior capital has not followed copper's record prices: the venture index is down about 6% while gold funds rise.

Real money is concentrating in brownfield projects with existing infrastructure rather than early-stage exploration drilling.

The hosts call visual assay photos selective disclosure: without assays or a comparable earlier hole, the images mislead.

Oxide gold changes the math: a million ounces grading a gram is a cheap, simple mine, not a starter project.

The closing pitches favor a management-led revaluation at Hercules Metals and a contrarian bet on Mogotes Metals.

One host argues Aris Mining is showing there is real appetite for the region and that people will be surprised by what the company is doing there.
He recalls the Aris team telling him soil samples cost about a dollar each, and says they bought in cheaply and are pushing that low-cost approach further.

One host cites Thesis Gold as an example of a roughly four billion dollar pre-feasibility net asset value that has not moved, and says he does not understand why the share price does not reflect it.

In the rapid-fire segment one host reports Wallbridge's metallurgical holes, including two metres of 50 grams, and says many of the good holes are outside the current resource.
He notes the resource is still around four million ounces, which he values at roughly four billion dollars at average today's prices, yet the stock has not really moved.
The host sees a path to a preliminary feasibility study but thinks the economics have to improve, and describes the company as a brownfield story he expects to get there.
He is openly frustrated that the press release buried the section cross-section and plan map behind links, saying he could not get through it.

In the Dig This Deal pitch one host describes Hercules Metals as a roughly $450 million copper exploration company whose value moved about 150% on the arrival of a new management team rather than on assays.
He says the project is a large copper porphyry system with a footprint he puts at about a kilometre by 750 metres, where roughly $45 million has already been spent.
He argues the incoming management team is the value driver, noting the executive previously appeared on the show and has a history of taking on, building up and selling companies.
He says he was in the office when the team's people were told to buy the stock at 65, and that the deal was done at $4.5 million and $60, and he is still very positive on the district.
The other host says the move has already run too far for him, and while he thinks the project is great he is no longer digging it at current levels.