During my recent hike up Grouse Mountain on Vancouver’s North Shore, I confirmed that a contrarian approach can pay off. While crowds flocked to the newly inaugurated gondola, the older one remained practically empty—even though it offered the same scenic view on the way down to the parking lot. 

A similar comparison might be drawn between gold, often derided as a “barbarous relic”, and cryptocurrencies.

In the Weekly Market Digest, the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has raised the global risk profile and demand for safe haven assets and energy commodities while raising market volatility, leaving the US equity markets mixed. 

The uptick in the gold price did not help precious metal equities, while concerns about a global slowdown due in part to a tariff battle between the US and its major trading partners (Canada, Mexico, and China) have ushered a retreat in industrial metals, having a knock-on negative impact on base metal equities.

The Exploration Insights Portfolio was down slightly last week but outperformed the precious and base metal equity ETFs, led by a gold explorer and a REE developer. This somewhat offset the underperformance of several grassroots copper explorers.  

In Stock Talk, I review the exploration and corporate updates from an Australian gold explorer and mixed financial updates from several cash-flowing royalty juniors and a prospect generator. Finally, lithium exploration updates from a prospect generator did not turn heads.