Critical Mineral Exploration, Manufacturing, Bessent & the Orange Man
It’s the Wild West (for critical mineral exploration)
Excerpted from the October 12th edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 884:
The segment’s title references two things.
I’ve always said that “investing” in junior/exploration mining stocks listed on the TSX-V is like the wild west, with adventure, profit and bust out failure all in play, and…
Literally, the U.S. based minerals/resources stocks are mostly operating in the west, including Alaska, and some like Talon Metals, in the northern mid-west. Canada is more distributed East to West, with British Columbia and the Yukon being mining havens.
Let’s focus on U.S. stocks, given the Trump admin’s (in my opinion, right minded ) desire to invest in the mineral resources sector. You can (and I do) say a lot of negatives about the guy and some of the clowns he has appointed to the administration, but he is somehow smart enough to surround himself with sharp economic people (IMO) who know what they are doing, in some cases.
The team advising Trump on strategic acquisitions (which began with the DoD’s investment in MP Materials) is in my opinion doing exactly what should be done in a world of unfair trade balances, set up by the greed on Wall Street, goring out America’s manufacturing base (I was there dealing with it, automating to survive it, remember), putting U.S. manufacturing on its knees, impairing mining and other “dirty” jobs in service to King Dollar and the mighty U.S. consumerist/services economy. It was all finance, baby.
You don’t need me to go on about the real manufacturing that went on back then (beginning in the “trickle down” 1980s that did not trickle). We as a greedy nation led by the Wall Street/Washington alliance, outsourced it all and manufactured a massive and sprawling rust belt while financially backed palaces in the sky were built to house millions of 9 to 5 clerks and corporate ladder climbers to operate the vast, growing (and financialized) services economy.
This brings on an…
Interlude
While I have actually witnessed abuses to the environment happening in the bad old days, which needed to be regulated (and how), the EPA and in a different area, OSHA became like thugs making you jump through an inordinate number of regulatory hoops. We had our ship battened down environmentally to a closed-loop overkill degree, making sure we were tight because, well, I was scared of EPA. While we were not polluting before hand, I felt the nee to throw 10s of thousands of dollars into over-killing the closed loop system just to make sure.
I also had to waste a couple days dealing with OSHA, because they did not like the wiring on an outlet or something like that. They stopped in one day, looked and looked until they found something, took up two days of my time and then dropped a fine on me. All this after we’d modernized, automated and done everything to be a top notch globally competitive manufacturer. Frankly, I hated having big brother leaning on me because with China and other cheap labor hubs constantly undercutting American manufacturers, the whole thing did not feel worth it.
That was due to not only lack of support by the U.S. government, but a perceived adversarial relationship with the government. That’s how it felt back then. You’re doing all you can, and then some administrator walks into your shop and “finds” something.
Interlude within the interlude: Since I am airing my grievances about the way things used to be, I’ll also detail the most galling example of government not working for my company, but instead, actively against it. We won a contract by $40,000 less than the “other guy”. I ask Dan, the buyer, “WTF are we not getting the award?” His answer: “Gary, I gotta go to a minority. I’ll get you later” (I don’t recall he ever did). The government routinely and willingly paid more to entities that had the status of “minority”. Yet all too many of these entities were not materially representing minority interests. Awesome.
Here’s the thing; those “minorities” were often either a company full of white people with the guy’s wife installed on top, or a company full of white guys with a person of minority nationality installed at the top. Good old boyz gonna be good old boyz and dey gonna play da game. The government didn’t seem to care as long as the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. A lot of sharp players knew how to dot and cross. Personally, I just wanted out.
Back on message, the initiatives by EPA were necessary. As I said, I saw abuse in my industry that just should not stand. It’s the overreach and punitive nature of the relationship between government and industry that was bad (at least back then, I’ve been out of the game for 13 years).
That is unrelated to our discussion of mining, but this punitive relationship was a concurrent challenge for manufacturing that piled on with the global outsourcing that systematically eroded America’s ability to robustly manufacture for itself. It was led by Wall Street types and politicians in whose pockets Wall Street resided. We became a nation of consumers and services recipients in the financialized economy with the King US Dollar sitting on top of the whole thing.
America had largely risen above the dirty jobs, like making things with the equipment necessary to do so, or digging critical minerals out of the ground, again with the equipment necessary to do so. Speaking of dirty jobs, I believe that if a large portion of politicians could have simply voted “make mining in the U.S. illegal” they would have done so. Manufacturing too. Let other countries do that dirty work while we rule the world under King Dollar’s tyranny.
In my agreement with current policy, I am talking my book as we began tracking the strategic investment case for MP back in 2023, and it finally proved out in 2025, under Trump. MP is the daddy, the Rare Earth producer and processor. But the case for small, viable exploration situations is compelling. This goes beyond REE and strategic minerals, obviously, with gold flying around at $4,000/oz. and silver at $50.
Au, Ag, Cu, Ni, Pd, Pt, Li and various REE.
As I look back on the last few months I realize that I began with a “basket” concept, as you may recall. A group of highly speculative, mostly TSX-V listed items for pure gambling. But over those months new information has been presented.
Information like the admin taking interest in smaller “resources” companies, as opposed to the already producing MP. Information like the TSX-V’s relentless drive upward from the depths of an 18 year hell. Information like gold, silver and now other metals ramming higher, which means demand it strong.
Strong demand presents a problem for miners of finite reserves. Hence, the hole diggers up north and west who’ve been nearly asphyxiated [for capital] for 18 years. In short, I am coming to see the play as having progressed from “basket” speculation to “try to find the best, most strategic and viable items and hold ’em.”
Among my holdings in the speculative exploration stocks operating in the U.S., [redacted, premium content] is in Minnesota, [redacted] (the stock is quite illiquid) in Michigan and Nevada, [redacted] in Colorado and Canada’s Yukon, and [redacted] Critical Minerals in Montana and Alaska, along with interests in the Canadian Yukon, BC, and Ontario. All of these stocks are multi-metal/mineral.
Lest I forget, my holdings exploring for metals/minerals in the U.S. also include [redacted] (small gold miner with a large REE land package) and [redacted]. I also added [redacted], after it got Trumped but then declined sharply before making new upside.
The point being that while I think the case is compelling for viable (read: non-scams) projects in the U.S., Canada and around the world, the Trump initiatives and “in the books” investments like the MP, Lithium Americas, Trilogy and Intel show an obviously motivated administration, putting its semi-nationalization strategies where its really big mouth is in the United States.
Here I will repeat that I have guidance from a couple geologists in the subscriber base. I plan to introduce them at an appropriate time through Podcast interviews and possibly written content if they so desire. Two things here: I’d like to get through my treatments first, feel okay, and then get going. The other thing is I have to figure out how to effectively set up a Podcast. Yes, I just wrote that. Maybe my daughter is up on that stuff, but I’ll take any advice you might have.
I would not have even known about [redacted] if it were not for [geologist] Michael. I would not have know about [redacted or redacted] were it not for [geologist] Greg. The keys here are not only Trump (his people are not going to be taking interest in holes in the ground with no validation), but also investment sponsorship of large miners and/or proven expansion of resources.
I’ll let Greg have the last word, speaking generally about the mineral exploration sector:
With the mining industry reliant on the juniors for nearly 100% of future production through dependence on the market to fund early stage to advanced stage projects (the majors only do exploration around their existing mines to replace reserves that have been depleted), and having starved those same juniors of capital for over 15 years, I think we are seeing the beginning of a generational revaluation of resources in the ground from extreme discounts to something that more realistically reflects the challenges of finding and developing these critical assets.
Bessent on the Right Track?
Am I going to add another positive check mark to an otherwise chaotic and sometimes infantile, sometimes petty, always vindictive Trump administration? Well, let’s see who Bessent picks as Fed Chair.
SecTreas Bessent, is interviewing a list now down to five Fed chair candidates, none of whom are named Miran. At least one (Rieder) has ideas about rolling back the Fed’s all omniscient power. If so, I was wrong in assuming Trump would install a robot who would simply carry on and make the worst of the Fed from Bernanke on, even worse.
“Roll back the use of some of its tools”???
Those “tools” created inflation through Funds Rate policy, QE, MMT and ever more eggheaded experimentation. Then when that went too far they went off the charts cynical (Bernanke: we’re going to “sanitize” inflation signals, he actually used that word) and ever more ingenious (and destructive) means. That God damn egghead created Operation Twist as a corrective to his previous policy.
And you wonder why the bond market erupted in 2022 and puked all of this toxic garbage up?
Maybe I am being naive in catching a glimpse of someone saying something I’ve been advocating for since Bernanke took us off an unsound path and right into a Wonderland of magical (and inflationary) possibilities. Please allow me this moment of positivity. :-)
A Trifecta for the Orange Man
All sides seem to be laying the credit for the cease fire in Gaza at Trump’s feet. You can click the pic to read, if you’d like. You can (and again, I do) say what you want about [Trump], but he’s gettin’ shit done in a world that probably needed a cattle prod right up its behind.
I’ll reserve further comment on Israel/Gaza because the politics behind the cease fire are anybody’s guess, and the true effects may not be known for some time.
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I consider that you should not redact your favorite stops in your free blog - non subscribers can then measure the value of your recommendations thereby encouraging them to subscribe to your letter.
Ed Kurys P.Eng MBA