Nick Hodge,
Publisher
July 28, 2026
Most resource investors spend their time asking the same question:
What should I buy?
That question matters.
But after 20 years in this market, I’ve learned that how you invest matters just as much as what you invest in.
That’s especially true in junior resource stocks.
By the time a company is telling its story publicly, doing interviews, sending emails, appearing at conferences, and attracting attention from the newsletter crowd, a lot may have already happened.
The insiders are already positioned. The strategic investors are already in. The warrants are already spoken for.
And the catalyst everyone is waiting for — the drill program, acquisition, relisting, resource update, or discovery hole — has already been funded by a small group of investors who got there first.
That’s what I call the private placement edge.
It’s the ability to participate in select financings before the broader market sees the story.
It’s not available to everyone.
And it’s not appropriate for every investor.
But in my experience, private placements can be one of the most powerful ways to invest in early-stage resource companies.
That’s why we built Private Placement Intel.
At this year’s Rule Symposium, Gerardo and I spent a lot of time talking about this exact topic: how private placements work, why warrants matter, what we look for before writing checks, and how qualified investors can get upstream from the herd.
We recorded several of those sessions and interviews, and I wanted to share them with you here.
Each video approaches the topic from a slightly different angle.
Click any thumbnail below to watch.
The Private Placement Edge: How Resource Investors Get In Before the Crowd
This is my main presentation on private placements.
I explain why early-stage resource companies raise capital before major catalysts, how a select group of investors often funds those catalysts, and why getting positioned before the market notices can change your place in the food chain.
I also walk through the PMET Resources / Patriot Battery Metals example.
We first financed that company when it was still called Gaia Metals at C$0.16. It later traded as high as C$17.80.
That was an 11,025% peak move from the financing price.
And because the financing included C$0.25 warrants, the potential return was even larger for those who exercised.
In the presentation, I also cover:
what private placements are;
- what they are not;
- why discounted shares and warrants matter;
- why liquidity matters;
- why “you cannot profit if you cannot sell”; and
- how we evaluate people, paper, project, price, and path.
This is the best place to start if private placements are new to you.
Inside Private Placement Intel: How We Vet Junior Mining Private Placements
This was our lunch presentation.
Jeff Phillips gave us a generous introduction, then Gerardo walked through the actual Private Placement Intel process in more detail.
One of the most important points Gerardo made was this:
We do not take commissions, fees, shares, or options from the companies we finance.
We make our money from the annual subscription fee and by writing checks alongside subscribers.
That alignment matters.
Gerardo also explained why the first job is not chasing upside. The first job is mitigating losses.
In junior mining, everybody has a story. Everybody thinks their project will work. Everybody says they are the next five-bagger.
That is not how this sector works.
Most deals do not make it through our filter.
Gerardo breaks down how we look at share structure, insider ownership, free-trading paper, warrants, escrow, management alignment, project scale, valuation, and the path to liquidity.
He also discusses Kincora Copper, North Shore Uranium, PMET Resources, Q2 Metals, and what a failed deal taught us about government risk.
The Q&A at the end is especially useful if you want to understand the practical side of private placements: minimum investment sizes, how long deals stay open, how allocations work, why you need the right broker, and how legend removal works.
Nick Hodge: The Private Placement Edge in Junior Mining Stocks
This interview was recorded before my main presentation.
Paul Harris and I talked about Digest Publishing, Private Placement Intel, the natural resource market, and where I see value right now.
My view is that we are in a broader commodity cycle that likely began in 2020, but that does not mean everything moves in a straight line.
Gold and silver had gotten stretched. Copper remains structurally important. Uranium equities have been soft, but the long-term nuclear thesis remains intact. Critical minerals remain tied to national security, reshoring, data centers, electrification, and grid reliability.
We also talked about M&A.
That is one of the major themes I see in the resource market today.
The larger companies have cash flow, but they need the next generation of assets. That means smaller producers, developers, and exploration companies with real assets could become acquisition targets.
That is where I spend much of my time: early-stage companies with market caps around $5 million to $50 million that may own the assets larger companies need later.
This interview is a good overview of the market backdrop behind the private placement strategy.
Mining Investment Information: Bias, AI & Finding Trusted Voices
This panel was moderated by Paul Harris and included Frank Curzio, Michelle Makori, Charlotte McLeod, and me.
The topic was how investors should evaluate information sources in the mining and resource space.
This market is full of noise.
There are newsletters, YouTube channels, podcasts, paid interviews, company presentations, social media threads, conference panels, press releases, AI summaries, and promotional campaigns coming at investors from every direction.
Some of it is useful. Some of it is biased. Some of it is paid for. Some of it is wrong.
The question is: how do you know who to trust?
On the panel, I talked about our own biases, why skin in the game matters, and why I believe investors should know whether the person making a recommendation has real capital at risk.
I also discussed how I use AI as a research tool — not as a replacement for judgment, but as a way to synthesize 43-101 reports, MD&As, financials, press releases, drill results, and company histories.
My final advice was simple: Evaluate the share structure, and make sure the people you are taking advice from have a vested interest in making good decisions.
The big idea running through all four videos is this: Private placements are not magic.
But they can offer qualified investors a seat much earlier in the process.
Before the broader market understands the story. Before the catalyst is funded. Before the marketing begins. Before the crowd shows up.
That is the market Private Placement Intel was built to cover.
We source the deal. We do the diligence. We review the terms.
We look at the people, paper, project, price, and path.
Then, when we find a deal we believe is worth our own capital, we bring it to Private Placement Intel subscribers.
From there, subscribers decide whether they want to participate.
We cannot guarantee winners.
Nobody can.
Some deals will not work. Some will go down. Some warrants will expire worthless.
But the winners can be large enough to change the math.
That is why we continue to write checks.
And it is why Private Placement Intel has become one of the most important services we publish.
Click here to learn more about Private Placement Intel.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Publisher, Bizarro World