Lab Report | Aug 20 Daily Market Overview & Deep Dive on Athena, Mackay, Orogen, Sirios

CEO.CA Aug 20, 2026 53:30

Summary

Athena Gold's new Red Lake hit of 23.85 g/t (grams per tonne) over 5 metres, near surface, is the standout result.

The host reads Sirios' 2.4 g/t over 48.5 metres at Cheech as high-grade shoots being tested beneath the open pit.

Mackay Gold & Silver adds a core rig to test the historic Sutro tunnel intersection on the Comstock, Nevada, inside a 20,000-metre program.

Orogen Royalties adds a 2% net smelter royalty on the Haldane silver project, and the host prefers its geologist-led model.

With bond yields at multi-year highs and debt near $40 trillion, the host says all roads lead to gold, now above its 200-day average.

First Majestic owns the Hermano mine in New Mexico, which the host calls one of its best-performing mines and which generates a significant cash-flowing royalty for Orogen Royalties.
Beyond that royalty link, the host's read-across is the gold and silver breakout he describes in the market overview rather than any company-specific call on First Majestic.

Orogen's new deal is a 2% net smelter royalty on the high-grade Haldane silver project in the Yukon, owned by Silver North; the host highlights that the royalty is uncapped with no buy-downs, so Orogen keeps the full 2%.
Haldane has been progressively drilled since 2019, with reported highlights including 818 g/t silver over 1.5 m and a hole carrying more than a kilogram of silver plus high-grade lead-zinc over 5.2 m, and management cites Keno-style vein targets with potential for new blind discoveries.
Orogen grew out of a royalty on Anglo's Merian discovery in Nevada, which it sold before spinning off its remaining assets into the current company; the host credits operator Patty Nickel with a geologist's background rather than the accountant-and-lawyer profile he sees at most royalty shops.
At roughly a $273M valuation, Orogen already collects a significant cash-flowing royalty from the Hermano mine in New Mexico; the host expects the stock to go up from here, while noting a thin buy side and only about 19,000 shares of average daily volume.

The host places Banyan together with the Haldane project in the heart of the Keno Hill district, which has produced 217 million ounces of silver historically and 3 million ounces in 2025, and describes the Banyan land package as significant and carrying historical deposits.
He notes the project is reached by both paved and gravel roads running out of Keno City, which he frames as a well-serviced location.

Top takeaway The host credits Darwin Green with consolidating the fragmented, postage-stamp-style ownership across Mackay's Comstock district land package, and says he has worked alongside him for years and rates him a super-talented geologist.
Green is quoted calling the Sutro tunnel intersection one of the largest and most compelling untested targets in the district and the starting point of exploring the deep portion of the Occidental-Brunswick lode.
Green points out that the nearly 4-mile Sutro tunnel cross-cut a 100-foot-wide interval of the vein that has never been followed up by a single drill hole, so modern drilling is going where the old workings stopped.
The host adds that Green is conservative, which is why he takes Green's public statements about district-scale potential more seriously than similar claims from other geologists.

Top takeaway The host says Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's move to prop up the long end of the US debt market by buying bonds to push yields down lasted about a single day before giving back a big chunk of the gains.
He calls that intervention a band-aid rather than a fix, with bond yields at multi-year highs and roughly $40 trillion of debt now officially in the books.
He adds that Bessent is also trying to prop up the yen carry trade, that this has likewise given back its gains, and that Bessent's trade policy simply follows whatever Trump wants, since propping markets without fundamentals rarely works.

Top takeaway He is bullish on gold and silver, arguing that fiat currency and the debt system are broken and that all roads lead to gold, with silver following the same path to a degree.
He points to weak copper supply against strong demand from AI and other electricity-driven uses, and says copper has moved from the lower left to the upper right of his chart over roughly the past year.
He notes the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all lower on Aug 20 amid rate uncertainty, and argues bond yields at multi-year highs are the clearest signal that rate relief is not coming.
On the stocks he covered he sees Athena sitting very early on the Lassonde curve despite its new Red Lake discovery and a roughly $16.5M valuation, while treating Mackay's roughly $257M valuation as rich but with room to run.
His stated working method is to watch where companies drill relative to grade and mineralisation, the lens he applies to the fourth deep dive's high-grade shoots beneath the pit shell, and he moved the show's format to deep dives first with the market overview at the end.