As 2020 keeps unfolding as one of the most remarkable years of the last decade with COVID-19 disrupting almost everything, resulting in unprecedented drops in economic activity and considerable volatility in the markets, and a second wave of the pandemic seems to be around the corner, the mining industry seems to be looking forward, on the back of a recovering economy, especially China returning back close to normal during the summer.

All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.

The Critical Investor, an avid and critical mining stock investor and newsletter writer from Europe, looks for high quality companies, strong short-term catalysts and deep value. In this interview with Streetwise Reports, he takes a deep dive into the drivers behind gold's appreciation, discusses several criteria he uses to evaluate mining juniors and developers, and profiles, using his numbers-based approach, 13 junior mining companies, of which most are featuring in his portfolio.

Treasury Metals (TML.TO, TSRMF.US) recently surprised the markets with the raising of C$11.5M in an oversubscribed financing, after announcing the pretty interesting all-equity acquisition, worth C$44M in shares at the time of the news release, of the neighbouring Goldlund open pit project from First Mining Gold, adding 1.6Moz Au of resources to the 1.46 Moz AuEq of Treasury’s flagship Goliath Gold open pit/underground project.

As Golden Arrow Resources (GRG.V, GARWF.US, G6A.FSE) renegotiated their Indiana gold project in Chile not too long ago into very favorable terms, I was surprised to recently read about the company dropping the project:

“The Company also wishes to report that it is not proceeding with its option of the Indiana Gold-Copper project in Chile.”

This article was republished as part of a syndication agreement between Genesis Metals and the Critical Investor. The author is James Kwantes.

Genesis Metals Corp. (GIS:TSX.V; GGISF:OTC) is building ounces and grade at its Chevrier project in Quebec's Abitibi Greenstone Belt, as Phase 1 drill results outline growing zones of higher-grade material within the existing Main Zone deposit.

As gold stocks are getting all the attention at the moment with gold firmly in an upward trend it seems, one could almost forget the existence of base metal juniors. This is not entirely justified in my opinion, as for example copper has recovered completely from its March lows, as can be seen in this chart per pound Cu by Macrotrends:

A tiny junior whose faith is closely intertwined with copper pricing is Avrupa Minerals (AVU:TSXV), as its flagship Alvalade brownfield copper-zinc project in Portugal is likely to contain significant amounts of the red metal.

After Standard Lithium (TSXV: SLL) (OTCQX: STLHF) (FRA: S5L) managed to close an almost two times oversubscribed C$12.1M capital raise on February 21, 2020, the company is financed at least into the “Proof of Concept” completion of the demonstration plant, and the subsequent consummation of the formal Joint Venture with LANXESS.

Like most projects around the world, Treasury Metals (TML.TO, TSRMF.US) has temporarily slowing down and shutting down drilling at their Goliath Gold project in Ontario, caused by the omnipresent COVID-19 pandemic, but as it has been completing over half of their drilling program before the virus broke out, it has been reporting several sets of drill results so far this year, and still has a few batches to come.

The Corona virus pandemic together with the Saudi Arabia-Russia oil production increase took its toll on the equity markets the last few weeks. The commodity markets in particular got hit too, as main end user China got hit by a halt in manufacturing plants across the economy.

Alianza Minerals (ANZ.V) was ready for their Phase II drill program at their fully owned flagship Haldane silver project, after their Phase I drill target defining program was completed earlier during the summer of last year. The company has been busy raising additional cash for 2020 exploration, and it started out with a small financing of $250,000 at 5 cents per unit on January 30, 2020.