Summer doldrums: Dusting off a bunch of tickers I haven't spoken about in a while
Low key but not forgotten. They sit in our portfolio, on the JMP Portfolio page. I don't talk about them much, however I am accumulating. I unpack them all below, including exclusive Premium coverage.
This summer I’ve been vocal on JMP’s more prominent positions, for good reason. KCLI, STMN, GOH, RARE, WDGY.
Below I’m going to give you my take on several companies in our portfolio that I haven’t mentioned in a while.
This includes the personal action I am taking on each, and what I’m expecting to happen in the coming months.
Below the Premium paywall are stocks exclusive to our supporting subscribers. I’ve been building my positions, and while the fundamental undertow builds I’m anticipating multi-bagger returns on every one of them.
At only $8/month (or $88/year) it’s by far the best value you’ll find for this level of coverage. A Founding membership, $275/year, gets you access to my e-mail for one on one portfolio and ticker discussions. I’ve come to know many subscribers personally through this Tier, and would encourage you to take advantage of this door.
First, a word on the current state of the junior resource sector
It’s a rough patch, and it’s happening despite most metals holding firm after last year’s wild bull run.
It’s also happening despite legendary resource investors like Rick Rule and Robert Friedland calling for a renewed bull market on the back of a supply crunch that stretches across the metals spectrum and shows no sign of loosening.
The markets are choppy right now, and I’ve been here more times than I can count.
It’s not a good feeling to watch your stocks slide or stall with no clear sense of where the bottom is.
That feeling gets worse if you didn’t take profits into recent rallies and pops.
This is exactly why diversification across commodities matters.
A few of our tickers have held up through this correction without giving back much.
A few are still considerably higher than our entry, despite the fact that most junior explorers have seen up to a 50% hair cut in recent months.
Plenty of others are underwater and waiting on catalysts that I believe will put us well ahead of the game once they land.
Bear in mind, confidence is not certainty.
The drill can miss. Assays can disappoint.
Most of the companies we cover are pre-discovery. That is where the high-risk, high-reward math lives, and positions should be sized accordingly.
A handful of our names have already found something and defined a resource.
They are working to grow it or push it through the development cycle. These are the safer bets, but understand what “safer” actually means here.
The risk shifts rather than disappears. Geological risk gives way to engineering, financing, and permitting risk. The Lassonde Curve spikes on discovery, then sags through the feasibility and permitting years, and only turns back up as the mine gets built and de-risked.
A resource-stage company can grind sideways for a long time while the market waits out that middle stretch. Positions should be managed accordingly.
Finally, while I’m not licensed to give investment advice and I never do, I’ll say this much. It’s rarely a bad idea to take some profits into the first major spike. It lowers your cost basis and leaves you with dry powder to reposition on the corrections, which almost always come.
Where does my portfolio strategy actually sit?
I get a lot of questions about how I personally position my portfolio.
When do I take profits? Do I ever cut a name loose entirely? When do I sell, when do I buy?
I would love to answer those. I can’t.
I don’t know your risk tolerance, your time frame, your capital needs, your holding power, or the dozen other things that shape your decisions.
My responsibility to you is this: present a company with a strong thesis and a clear path to a rerating, built on sound geology and a management team that can execute.
I allocate a larger portion of my total portfolio to this sector than most people should. I’ve been doing this for around 35 years. I am willing to take the hits and keep adding to positions that are seriously depressed.
Right now we’re in a risk-off environment. Sellers are trimming exposure to the sector and taking a wait-and-see approach until things settle.
In my experience summer doldrums is the most challenging time of the year to find bull runners. Also a great time to add to positions that have gone quiet on the market, but loud and busy on the ground.
One more thing before we get to the names.
I encourage you to check the JMP portfolio page regularly for the current situation on each company. Bookmark it and visit it often.
Now let’s dust off some legacy tickers
Formation Metals Inc. (CSE: FOMO / OTCQB: FOMTF)
Share price: $0.29 Market cap: $43.6M
Formation picked up the 4,400-hectare N2 gold project in Quebec’s Abitibi during the 2024 bear market, complete with an 871,000 oz historical resource. The A-Zone hosts a mineralized veining system 20 to 61m thick and at least 100m wide, with up to 8km of potential strike.
Goliath Resources (TSX-V: GOT) founder Roger Rosmus joined FOMO’s board in February.
Two rigs are turning on a fully funded 75,000m program, backed by $30.7M in working capital and zero debt. The recent 200m step-out west returned 1.05 g/t Au over 31m and confirmed the system runs laterally toward the high-grade RJ corridor, where historical holes returned up to 51 g/t. A 400m southern step-out hit visible gold in N2-26-24.
The maiden resource estimate is targeted for Q3 2026. That’s the number the market reprices on.
What I am doing: Accumulating under 0.30
What I’m expecting to happen: The Q3 maiden resource is the whole event. If the A-Zone, the western extension and the RJ corridor pull together into something approaching 2 million ounces of near-surface gold at these gold prices, the market has to reprice a $44M shell holding a deposit the majors on the Casa Berardi trend need.
Auriginal Mining Corp. (TSXV: AUME / OTC: KTRXF)
Share price: $0.05 Market cap: $15.8M
Peter Cashin drilled the Roger project in Quebec’s Chibougamau district back in 1985. Four decades later he’s back, running his own company on the same ground, reinterpreting 58,000m of historical drilling through modern VMS science.
That history matters because it explains the June 2 press release. Cashin’s model predicted massive sulphides sitting directly above the known porphyry, and the drill found them exactly where he said they’d be. AUR-26-03 cut 8.1m and 4.0m of massive to semi-massive pyrite-chalcopyrite, tying to an off-hole EM conductor identified last fall. Two holes 600m northeast traced the fault-offset porphyry over 400m of new strike, and the sulphide marker horizon shows strong similarities to Agnico Eagle’s LaRonde deposit.
In a November 2025 interview, Peter stated the company believes Roger could host up to C$2 billion in situ economic ore based on C$200-250 per tonne rock values observed at comparable regional VMS deposits.
Assays are expected throughout Q3. Downhole EM and gravity crews are surveying every new hole to hunt more sulphide bodies. If the numbers confirm what the core is showing, Roger becomes two deposit types in one system.
What I am doing: Accumulating under 0.06
What I’m expecting to happen: Q3 assays either confirm the VMS sulphides above the porphyry or they don't. If they do, Roger stops being a single tired porphyry and becomes a two-deposit system in a camp that hosts LaRonde. Cashin has been right about this rock for forty years, and at $15.8M the market is betting he isn't.
Kirkland Lake Discoveries Corp. (TSXV: KLDC / OTCQB: KLKLF)
Share price: $0.295 Market cap: $60.7M
420 sq km in Ontario’s Kirkland Lake gold camp, funded by a $10M raise with Eric Sprott, Rob McEwen and Crescat on the register.
The June 23 results gave us two things at once. KLM26-011 returned 0.98 g/t Au over 62.3m and pushed the broad shallow South Zone 100m west and 130m down. KLM26-010, drilled 120m south of any known mineralization, came back with 79.63 g/t over 2.1m. The company reads this as a network of connected dilation zones: gold pooled into broad zones where the rock pulled apart, and left narrow high-grade streaks in the tight cracks between them.
A second rig is turning and ten holes sit pending assay. Grades are uncut, and Chrysos PhotonAssay with screen fire on anything above 350 g/t is the right call in coarse-gold rock.
What I am doing: Holding
What I’m expecting to happen: Ten holes pending, two rigs turning. What I'm watching for is confirmation that the dilation model holds, that the broad South Zone repeats along strike rather than being a one-off. Once you can draw a continuous corridor tying the South Zone, North Zone and those southern high-grade hits together, the conversation shifts to a resource.
Pacific Ridge Exploration (TSXV: PEX / OTCQB: PEXZF)
Share price: $0.19 Market cap: $18.4M
Two copper-gold porphyry projects in BC, and the numbers at Kliyul are the part people miss. The Kliyul Main Zone, just one target area on the property, holds 2.42 billion pounds of copper equivalent, or 5.7 million ounces gold equivalent, in the inferred category. Last year’s drilling there returned 289.0m of 0.77% CuEq (0.26% Cu, 0.75 g/t Au, 1.54 g/t Ag).
The $8.46M placement closed July 2 and put the treasury above $9.0M. Real dilution, and I won’t pretend otherwise. What it buys is two high-impact drill programs without a mid-season hat in hand. The bigger news is who showed up: Minsur, the Peruvian tin and copper producer, took the entire final tranche through Cumbres del Sur and is now the largest shareholder at roughly 13.8%. They also took technical access to RDP and a nine-month right of first refusal to acquire the project outright.
RDP earned that interest. Hole RDP-25-011 cut 112.2m of 1.35% CuEq (0.76% Cu, 0.86 g/t Au, 3.16 g/t Ag), one of BC’s best porphyry intervals of 2025. This season they drill the interpreted porphyry centre at Day and chase the western magnetic lobe, while flow-through money goes into resource expansion at Kliyul. A producer does not take a ROFR on a single asset unless it is thinking about owning it, and that clock is now running.
What I am doing: Holding
What I’m expecting to happen: The nine-month ROFR clock on RDP is the thing. Minsur bought a seat at the table and the right to buy the asset outright, and producers don't do that casually. Either they exercise and the market gets a real price for a BC porphyry, or the drill hits the Day porphyry centre and Pacific Ridge gets a rerate without them.
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSXV: UCU / OTCQX: UURAF)
Share price: $5.19 Market cap: $604M
One of our biggest winners at +1,088% in 92 days during the 2025 run, and the story has moved from proving a technology to selling a product. Ucore owns the RapidSX separation process, the Louisiana Strategic Metals Complex, and Bokan in Alaska.
On July 7 the company produced 99.9% dysprosium oxide at Kingston for qualification sampling with Japanese, South Korean and US magnet makers. Dysprosium is what keeps a magnet working hot, in EV motors, robotics and defense, and there is no qualified non-Chinese source of it. As Pat Ryan put it, the Western first-mover advantage is about qualification status, not volume.
Watch for the first definitive offtake agreement. That’s what turns a qualification sample into revenue.
What I am doing: Holding long term
What I’m expecting to happen: Qualification samples become definitive offtake agreements. Dysprosium and terbium have no qualified non-Chinese source, and Ucore is furthest along the on-ramp. The first binding supply contract is the number that turns this from a technology story into a revenue story.
