Happy Saturday! Pour the weekend double-double, because this is the week in five stories, ranked by you.
Five dispatches went out this week, so every edition made the cut. What you decided was the order. Ranked by email open rate (web views as the tiebreaker, though no two editions tied), here they are, each led by the story that carried it.
The week in one line: a hot CPI print knocked the wind out of bullion, the drill bits still found high grade from Argentina to the Yukon, and gold slid from $4,139/oz spot on Monday's Quick Stats to $3,871/oz on Friday's, while WTI firmed from $86.38 to $88.94/bbl.
🥇 #1: A Hot CPI Print Mugs Gold and Silver
The story. A hotter than expected US CPI report landed Tuesday, and gold cratered roughly 2.6% to around $4,032/oz while silver fell even harder, down about 4% to near $51/oz (spot, as of 5:00 p.m. ET in that edition's Quick Stats). The TSX Venture Composite, the juniors' home index, closed down 1.67% in sympathy. In dollar terms, that was a $107 drop in gold in a single session.
Why you read it. The edition flagged the mechanics: a print that beat expectations knocked down bets on a December Fed rate cut, pushed the US dollar index higher and made non-yielding bullion a lot less attractive to hold overnight. Every gold and silver junior on your screen got repriced on a rate bet, not on anything that happened at a drill site.
The skeptic's footnote. The edition's own read: if you hold real ounces in the ground with a credible path to production, a one-day CPI tantrum is noise. If you hold a promotion with no assays behind it, days like this are when the music stops. The bleed didn't end Tuesday either: by Thursday's edition, gold was down a third straight session to near $3,877/oz.
🥈 #2: AbraSilver Drills Into the Money Zone at Diablillos
The story. AbraSilver Resource Corp. ($ABRA.TSXV ( ▼ 3.12% )) released fresh Phase VI assays from its Diablillos project in Salta, Argentina: 75.0 metres grading 2.44 g/t gold and 106 g/t silver inside the planned Oculto pit, including 7.0 metres at 7.97 g/t gold. A 253.0 metre step-out at Oculto East graded 0.54 g/t gold and pushes the oxide gold zone further east than the current resource model.
Why you read it. Infill holes inside the pit de-risk the mine plan analysts are already modeling, while the Oculto East step-out is pure optionality: more ounces with no incremental land cost. Three rigs are turning at once ahead of an updated resource estimate due in Q2 2027 and a heap leach PEA the company has promised "shortly."
The skeptic's footnote. True widths aren't established yet, so don't mistake these for mining widths. And "shortly" is not a date: the PEA is the document that tells you whether that oxide gold actually pays.
🥉 #3: Altius Swallows TNR Gold's Royalty Book and Ends the Board Fight
The story. Altius Minerals ($ALS.TSX ( ▼ 0.19% )) agreed to buy every TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) share it doesn't already own through a BC plan of arrangement. TNR holders get 0.0072 Altius shares plus 0.25 of a share in a new spinout company per TNR share, valuing the deal at about $122 million, a roughly 60% premium to Tuesday's close. Altius already owned about 13% of TNR going in.
Why you read it. It ends a months-long dispute with activist holder Eucalyptus Resources Opportunities Fund, which, together with every TNR director and officer (about 28% of TNR combined), has now signed on in support. What Altius gets: a 0.36% royalty on McEwen Copper's Los Azules project and a 1.35% royalty on the Mariana lithium brine run by Ganfeng ($GNENF ( ▼ 1.77% )), both in Argentina. The spinout keeps TNR's Shotgun gold project in Alaska, with Altius holding a 0.5% royalty there too.
The skeptic's footnote. As the edition put it, Altius isn't buying drill holes, it's buying paper: those royalties only pay when someone else builds and runs the projects. Nothing is closed yet either. The TNR shareholder vote is expected in December, with a close around Q1 2027.
🏔️ #4: Tudor Gold Finds a Brand New Gold System at Treaty Creek
The story. Tudor Gold Corp. (TSXV: TUD; OTC: $TDRRF ( ▲ 0.39% )) hit a new high-grade low-to-intermediate sulfidation gold-silver system at the Perfectstorm Zone of its Treaty Creek project in BC's Golden Triangle, about 500 metres northwest of its earlier copper-gold porphyry drilling. Hole PS-26-36 returned 9.00 g/t gold over 9.50 metres, including 43.29 g/t gold over 1.20 metres. Hole PS-26-34 hit mineralization 190 metres down-dip of a surface vein zone roughly 25 metres wide, and PS-26-35 pushed the separate PSP Zone another 220 metres down-dip and along strike.
Why you read it. A high-grade vein system sitting on top of a porphyry target is the kind of optionality that gets a name re-rated. The edition's read: Tudor could be holding two different deposit styles stacked on the same ground.
The skeptic's footnote. With 19 holes still at the lab and a maiden resource for the PSP Zone not expected until all assays are in, don't expect clarity on size for a while. That 43.29 g/t is over 1.20 metres; what you're getting is more pieces of a picture, not the picture.
✨ #5: Prospector Metals Pulls a Half-Metre of 147-Gram Gold Out of the Yukon
The story. Prospector Metals (TSXV: PPP; OTC: $PMCOF ( ▲ 2.17% )) released final assays from scissor hole ML26-085 at the TESS zone of its ML Project in the Yukon: 5.91 g/t Au over 22.06m from 46.52m, including 14.32 g/t Au over 8.58m, including a half-metre at 147.2 g/t Au. Hole ML26-083 came back polymetallic: 5.83 g/t Au, 30.5 g/t Ag and 1.31% Cu over 8.79m. TESS is now defined over at least 400m of strike and to 175m depth, and it's still open.
Why you read it. Over C$36 million in the treasury means no desperation financing is forcing this story, and 52 more holes are still pending assay from a fully funded 25,000m-plus step-out program. An open, widening, polymetallic zone is exactly the newsflow that re-rates a junior while the drills keep turning.
The skeptic's footnote. The edition's own catch: a half-metre of bonanza grade inflates a headline number fast, so watch how that interval actually weights the block model at the next resource update. (This edition went out Friday evening, so it had only a few hours to collect opens before this ranking was pulled.)
📰 Also Moving This Week
Strathcona pays up for Greenfire. Strathcona Resources (TSX: SCR; OTC: $STHRF ( ▲ 4.13% )) agreed to buy Greenfire Resources (TSX: GFR; NYSE American: $GFR ( ▲ 0.13% )) for up to $2.9 billion, with holders choosing 0.25 Strathcona shares or $11.00 cash per share, a cash premium of nearly 39% to the prior Friday's close. (Nov 9)
Gunnison Copper confirms a chunky hit in Arizona. Gunnison Copper Corp. (TSX: GCU; OTC: $GCUMF ( ▼ 1.96% )) hole SHM-2 at Strong & Harris ran 40 feet grading 5.15% copper and 11.99% zinc, inside a broader 311 foot interval averaging 1.39% copper and 2.29% zinc. (Nov 10)
Freehold Royalties buys into the Duvernay. Freehold ($FRU.TSX ( ▲ 1.11% )) grew Q3 funds from operations 37% to $80.4 million and agreed to buy a 3% gross overriding royalty on undeveloped Duvernay land from Refraction Energy Corp. for up to $65 million. (Nov 11)
Troilus finds gold in rock it had filed as waste. Troilus Mining (TSX: TLG; OTC: $CHXMF ( ▼ 0.96% )) drilled 34 metres grading 1.29 g/t gold from 207 metres down in the Z87 hangingwall, including a one-metre slug at 21.10 g/t, in ground the block model had treated as waste. Shares still slipped 2.8% to $1.56 on the day. (Nov 12)
Condor's Uzbekistan gas hits a record, Kazakh LNG slips again. Condor Energies (TSX: CDR; OTC: $CNPRF ( ▼ 6.82% )) averaged a record 18,631 boe/d from November 1 to 11, but startup of its first Kazakhstan LNG unit has slipped to Q2 2027. (Nov 13)
Keep your grades high and your dilution low. See you Monday. ⛏️
