Happy Saturday.
We ran seven editions this week, from Uncle Sam buying stock in a copper miner to the Fed doing something it hadn't done in three years.
Some of you clicked, some of you just opened and moved on, and the data doesn't lie about which ones actually landed.
Here's the week, ranked by what you actually read.
One housekeeping note before the countdown: this is a small list right now, so treat the ranking as directional rather than gospel.
It's built from opens, clicks, and web traffic, not a scientific poll.
Take it in the spirit it's meant: which stories earned a second look.
#1: Washington Buys Into Trilogy Metals' Alaska Copper Play
The single most-read story of the week, and it's not close on clicks or web traffic.
The Pentagon took an equity stake in an Alaska copper project.
That's not a subsidy, not a loan guarantee, it's the US government becoming a shareholder in a junior's mine.
Add in Goliath Resources connecting two BC gold zones and Advantage Energy banking $316 million for buybacks, and it's easy to see why this one got passed around.
Why it topped the list:
A government taking a direct equity position in a critical-minerals project is a genuinely rare structure, and readers know it.
It's the kind of headline that changes how you think about the whole critical-minerals trade, not just one ticker.
#2: The Fed Raises Rates for the First Time in Three Years
The Fed hiked, and gold shrugged it off instead of selling off, which is its own tell about where sentiment sits right now.
A Yukon copper belt kept getting fatter, and Alberta's regulator evicted an operator from 581 wells, which is a sentence you don't get to write often.
Why it ranked here:
Macro stories cut across every portfolio in a way single-name drill results don't.
When the Fed does something it hasn't done in three years, everybody wants to know what it means for their gold and copper juniors, and this edition told them.
#3: The Pentagon Bets $450 Million on Tungsten
Defense-department money found two overlooked tungsten juniors this week, while Alberta's government called TC Energy's pipeline grip a market failure in about as many words.
Cardinal Energy supersized a SAGD project on fat oil prices too.
Why it ranked here:
Tungsten almost never gets a headline, so when it does, and it's the Pentagon writing the check, readers pay attention.
It's the same story as Trilogy in miniature: government money finding a critical mineral nobody was watching.
#4: A Suriname Junior Drills a Career Hole
Founders Metals hit one of its best-ever intercepts at Antino, Tamarack Valley and Headwater merged into a $10 billion Clearwater giant, and Enbridge went shopping for pipe again, less than a day after naming its next CEO.
Why it ranked here:
A career-best hole is the purest version of what this newsletter exists to cover, real rock, real numbers, no promo needed.
Paired with a genuinely large Alberta merger, it earned its spot.
#5: Uncle Sam Bets $414 Million on Niger Yellowcake
Global Atomic scored a US DFC financing nod for Africa's biggest uranium mine, Precision Drilling and Gibson Energy both renewed buybacks, and a refractory gold "breakthrough" came with a byline that had a little too much skin in the game.
Why it ranked here:
Another case of Washington putting real money behind a resource play, this time uranium in Niger, and the skeptic's footnote on that gold "breakthrough" is exactly the honesty this newsletter is supposed to deliver.
Rounds out a week where government money was the connecting thread across three of the top five stories.
Five stories, ranked by what actually got read.
The Pattern Worth Noticing
Three of this week's top five stories had a government writing a check: the Pentagon into Trilogy Metals copper, the Pentagon into tungsten juniors, and Washington's DFC into Niger uranium.
That's not a coincidence, it's critical-minerals policy showing up in the tape.
Worth watching whether that trend keeps supplying next week's Motherlode.
Keep your grades high and your dilution low.
See you Monday.