I guess a mid-year review stops being a mid-year review when you’re closer to Labour Day than Canada Day. Let’s get right to it since I’m already running late.
Fun fact: Borrowing costs are going up for the US Government. A $25-billion offering of 30-year Treasury bonds closed with yields as high as 5.22 per cent, which just happens to be a 25-year high.
There’s nothing new to say on gold’s fundamentals. Real rates are negative with no political will to raise them. Central banks are structural buyers as they move away from the US dollar into gold. From here it’s mainly a process of patiently holding and waiting for the thesis to play out.
To the extent that anyone should be listening to me, I don’t think we see some huge spike in oil prices that the world’s most sophisticated traders have somehow not priced in. Gold is the play. Constraints on AI usage is the trade. Deglobalization and reindustrialization of North America continues in the background. Oil seems like a distraction when you have three tailwinds to choose from.
Updated Portfolio
As of August 21, 2026
Mining
KGCRF - Kinross Contingent Value Rights
Banyan Gold
Surge Copper
Iamgold
Agnico EagleLiberty Gold
St. Barbara
EDM Resources
Agnico Eagle Contingent Value Rights
Those Kinross CVRs and Banyan Gold continue to drive returns in this bucket. I concluded the Rupert merger-arb with a sale of Agnico Common shares at a small profit. Because AEM.CV is publicly traded with the payout capped at $3, it made sense to sell those early rather than waiting years. KGCRF with its payout in Kinross common shares is a unicorn.
St. Barbara is a new addition with my purchase price hovering near the company’s net cash levels. The old Atlantic Gold assets that destroyed so much value previously now act as the growth driver for a company that doesn’t need to raise money to meet its development obligations in Papua New Guinea or Nova Scotia.
I was holding off on releasing this post until I could talk about EDM Resources and their restart of the Scotia zinc/gypsum/lead Mine just outside of Halifax. With a market capitalization of $55-million, it’s trading below the value of a streaming deal for its gold byproduct (assuming payable by-product gold lands in the low thousands of ounces per year, similar to Canadian Copper). This was a screaming bargain a few weeks ago, it’s just very cheap today.
IAMGOLD, Liberty Gold and Surge Copper all serve the same portfolio purpose, cheap assets that will rerate or get taken over. I consider all three low-risk.
Industrials
Comstock Inc. - Silver
LibertyStream Infrastructure Partners - Lithium
Aecon - Nuclear
Clean Seed Capital - Agriculture
Aecon is finally being recognized for its portfolio of infrastructure assets and backlog of high-value nuclear services work. My ARE.TO price target is $90 and the company serves it’s purpose as a stable portfolio anchor and all around get-rich-slow investment. I expect the other three stocks to follow in a matter of months. Comstock jumped after bringing its industrial scale solar recycling facility online, yet still trades below the value of its stake in a parcel of energized land that’s ready for data centre construction.
The recent approval of a data centre by Lyon County, Nevada provides more evidence the data-centre-ready land is worth more than LODE’s entire market capitalization.
LibertyStream Infrastructure is producing lithium carbonate today from Permian oilfield brine. The company filed its S-1 and remains on track for a Nasdaq listing later this year.
Royalties
Altius Minerals
Gold Royalty
LunR Royalties
Erda Resource Opportunities
Oracle Commodity Holdings
Erda Resource Opportunities is more merchant bank than royaltyco. It’s the remaining piece of Fancamp Resources after spinning off Goldera Exploration to shareholders. Backed by chairman Ashwath Mehra with insider ownership above 25 per cent, here are the assets inside Erda you’re getting for a market cap of approximately $35-million:
A stock portfolio worth more than $20-million, including 8.5% of EDM Resources and 2.7 million shares of Champion Iron. Those Champion Iron shares spit out $500,000 per year in dividends
Up to $40-million in future production payments from Champion Iron
A royalty portfolio with one producing NSR
A $34.5-million convertible note issued by Canada Chrome Corporation and secured by Ring of Fire mining claims. The claims are next door to the Eagles Nest chromite deposit owned by Wyloo. If Canada Chrome defaults, Erda would be in a position to sell the claims to Wyloo at a premium to the face value of the note.
Titanium assets best thought of as out-of-the-money call options at the moment
The asset value gives Erda a high floor. The execution when monetizing those assets will determine whether this is the next Dundee Corp. or a value trap.
Altius and LunR are core portfolio positions. Gold Royalty’s share price is back from the dead after reporting record results and a net cash position. The sooner GROY sells out to Tether, the better. This is not a management team that can be trusted to sit still, buy back shares and wait for its portfolio to ramp up to 10,000 gold equivalent ounces. I’d be looking for at least $6 from a GROY buyout.
Exploration/Prospect Generators
Kenorland Minerals
Orogen Royalties
Prospector MetalsGoldera Exploration
Vulcan Minerals
Morien Resources
I chickened out of Prospector Metals after the first few assays came back from ML. With more than 60 holes to come, this could look like a stupid decision.
Prospector shareholders will also soon receive spinco shares in Lightning Resources. In a real world portfolio where dollars and mental bandwidth is limited, I preferred the undervaluation and gold optionality provided by EDM.
Goldera arrives in the portfolio as a spinout from Erda. With financial backing from Rick Rule and Ashwath Mehra, we’ll be watching for news flow from ~6,000 metres of drilling on the Egan (Ontario) and Acadian (New Brunswick) properties.
Vulcan Minerals (Great Atlantic 3% NPR + ~20% stake in Atlas Salt) seems to have joined Kenorland (Frotet NSR) and Orogen (Ermitaño, La Rica + Highway 37 NSRs) in reaching escape velocity. It would take epic failure with the drill bit for any of these companies to fall below the value of their tentpole royalties at this point.
If Nova Scotia is serious about jump starting its mining industry, Morien provides cheap optionality. A restart or sale of the Donkin mine could double the share price overnight.
Specials/Workouts
Panthera Resources
Almaden Minerals
Lomiko Metals
Fancamp ExplorationLargo Inc.
Lomiko Metals will exit the portfolio when it gets taken over for 13 cents per share in cash. Fancamp turned into Erda and Goldera. Normally I would have blown out the Erda shares to collect my free stuff, aka Goldera shares. But the more I looked into Erda the more I liked it, particularly EDM Resources. I thought Largo Inc. would be able to fully restructure its debt after receiving a US$60-million vanadium order from the US Government. When that didn’t happen I took the loss and moved on.
Panthera is the most exciting position in this bucket. The company remains on a collision course with the Indian government.
Unless there’s a settlement (unlikely) all roads lead to binding international arbitration in December to determine if India illegally expropriated the company’s main asset, and if so, determine the damages. Panthera has a compelling case and is seeking more than US$1.5-billion in compensation. Having done this before with Jim Doak and Khan Resources, it’s important to note that even if the company wins an arbitration hearing getting paid will take a while. It’s why I avoid arbitration claims involving most African countries or countries run by a military junta.
Things I said …
Interesting Links
The world’s ability to absorb Chinese overcapacity is approaching a breaking point. And if that breaking point comes, the consequence could be a global economic crisis at a time when governments are particularly ill equipped to manage the fallout.
Real estate cycles break the same way every single time. Not when demand collapses - it rarely does - but when the rate of demand growth decelerates against the fixed supply the boom has just finished building.
With just a quick look into some basic physics and logistics of putting a data centre in space, the idea becomes comical.
The size of Berg means that project finance, a major partner, streaming, offtake and government support could all become relevant. The eventual ownership structure will matter more to shareholders than a few tenths of a dollar in diesel prices.
When the person running the company is also its largest owner and its largest creditor, the incentive to quietly let it slide into liquidation basically disappears.
Two people can both be 80 years old. One may have the physical and mental abilities of someone much younger. The other may feel decades older.
Nutrition research often teaches us that body weight is a blunt instrument. Two diets can produce similar changes on the scale while producing very different metabolic outcomes.
“My physique got better when I stopped chasing strength.”