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Big Money Is Moving Into Small Gold Stocks | Anthony Milewski - The Oregon Group

The Deep Dive Oct 6, 2026 11:13

Summary

Capital is returning to small gold explorers after a decade of dry funding; juniors are now putting raised money into drilling, not CEO pockets.

Moving to U.S. listings opens far deeper retail liquidity, and the new SEC ADR rules let Canadian juniors reach Nasdaq and NYSE investors.

Critical metals carry real risk: roughly 98-99% of global refining capacity sits in China, and rigid demand can erase the bid on small surpluses.

Nickel sits at the bottom of its cycle with about 70% of supply in Indonesia, while deep-sea polymetallic nodules could disrupt markets this decade.

The guest expects gold to set new all-time highs within a year on election-cycle money printing, even as rates rise; silver is less certain.

Steve Hyland's takeaways

  • Top takeaway He explains the shelf prospectus to a largely retail audience in plain terms: a company that registers with the SEC or the TSX and hires a bank can sell newly issued shares straight into existing trading volume.
  • He illustrates why that matters with an example — a micro-cap trading at four times its market capitalisation can raise $10 million by issuing $10 million of paper into $200 million of daily volume in a single session.
  • He uses Japan Gold as the clearest example of the moment he is describing: the stock at 6 cents and assumed dead, then up about 75% in a day on a big announcement, and now funded enough to drill.
  • He notes that Canadian juniors can now reach the NASDAQ through ADRs after an SEC rule change, and that he understands Peter Espig was the first to act on it.
  • He says he used to be CEO of a nickel company, and recalls speaking six years ago with a deep-sea mining CEO who had raised close to a billion dollars and had a ship ready, only for that CEO to say environmental opposition would never allow it.

Anthony Milewski's takeaways

  • Top takeaway He argues this is the first time in about a decade that very small gold juniors are worth owning: after heavy capital raising over the past 12 to 24 months and renewed M&A activity, he expects these companies to put money in the ground instead of the CEO's pocket, with discoveries and heavy drilling to follow.
  • He warns against holding minor or critical metal stocks for long, saying 98 to 99% of global refining capacity for many of them sits in China, that demand is nearly fixed so a small push of supply leaves almost no bid, and that you never really own a minor metal stock, you rent it — sell into a placement or trim the initial position.
  • He says company boards now want U.S. listings, because the big recent success stories have been U.S.-listed and that market carries the deepest liquidity; he has noticed a wave of U.S. banks specialising in NASDAQ vehicles, and sees cross-listing and ADR routes as how juniors plan to reach that capital.
  • On nickel he says the metal is at the bottom of the cycle, with roughly 70% of global production in Indonesia, where he describes severe environmental damage and a recent earthquake that narrowly missed the region; he calls that major concentration risk and expects nickel to have its moment within the next few years.
  • He predicts gold will reach new all-time highs within 12 months of the October 2026 conversation even with interest rates rising, attributing his conviction to government spending and election-cycle money printing, while saying silver is more complicated because of its industrial use and expressing no strong view on it.