Weekly Wrap: Small-Caps Stir While Markets Sleep
When buyers stop waiting for permission, things move. This week proved it across copper, gold and silver.
Markets drifted sideways this week, but you wouldn’t know it if you were watching small-caps.
The ASX200 barely twitched, and most of the macro noise just faded into the background. But further down the boards, a few speculative names started to stir and you could feel the early lift in confidence that comes when buyers stop waiting for permission.
Here's what caught our attention:
AZ9 prepares to fire up the rigs again in the hunt for more copper in Mongolia.
Bubalus eyes Fosterville-style gold at the soon-to-be drilled Crosbie North.
FMR lands industry heavyweight Nickel Industries CEO Justin Werner as director.
Our eBook tip BHM relists and jumps 21.5% as silver price surges.
AZ9: Back to the Drill Bit in Mongolia
Asian Battery Metals (ASX: AZ9) is getting ready to fire up the rigs again in Mongolia, and the market’s already leaning in.
Shares climbed 23% on Friday after AZ9 outlined plans to drill multiple high-priority copper-nickel targets at its Oval prospect - a spot they suspect is just one part of a much larger mineralised system.
The new campaign is guided by earlier geophysics that lit up three clear zones, each showing signs of sulphide-rich mineralisation underground. That kind of signature tends to show up when there’s real copper in the system.
Drilling kicks off shortly at Oval, where AZ9 has already intersected broad veins of disseminated sulphides and narrower zones of massive sulphides in earlier phases.
Now they’re going back in with a clearer roadmap and a hotter copper price behind them.
At just 3.2c a share, with drilling around the corner and copper sentiment surging, AZ9 looks well-placed to ride a tailwind if the next hits land.
Bubalus: Crosbie North Takes Centre Stage
Bubalus Resources (ASX: BUS) followed up its gold-in-every-hole debut at Crosbie South last week with a new announcement that could matter even more for the stock’s long-term upside.
This week, Bubalus revealed the size and scale of the targets it’s mapped out at Crosbie North, just 15 kilometres from Fosterville - one of Australia's highest-grade producing gold mines.
The Crosbie North targets show the same structural setting and geophysical signatures that have been linked to Fosterville mineralisation.
Recent modelling has pinpointed three clear areas underground that look rich in sulphides, which often carry gold in these Victorian systems.
The company’s model is simple: repeatable structures, low drill costs, and proximity to proven systems. These targets will now be tested over the coming months.
At 9.5c per share with a $6 million market cap and $3.5 million in cash, any decent intersection will move the needle. In a market where genuine leverage is hard to find, BUS offers one of the cleaner plays.
FMR: Big Name, Big Signal, Justin Werner Joins the Board
FMR Resources (ASX: FMR) pulled off a coup this week when it landed Justin Werner, managing director of $3.2 billion Nickel Industries (ASX: NIC), as a non-executive director.
Werner has spent more than two decades building serious mining operations, transforming Nickel Industries from a small operation into the world's largest listed pure-play nickel producer.
Werner brings deep operational expertise, M&A experience, and capital markets clout. For a company still early in its journey, that kind of firepower can reshape the trajectory of a company still early in its journey.
The announcement caught the market’s attention because of what it signals: institutional-level confidence in FMR’s story, especially around its flagship copper target in Chile.
We highlighted the move in our article earlier this week, noting that Werner’s decision to join comes on the back of strong early data from FMR’s target and a clean capital structure.
With drilling around the corner, copper running, and one of the tightest registers on the market, FMR looks set to attract a lot more eyeballs.
Silver Timing Looks Spot on as BHM Rips 21.5%
It was flagged in our 2025 stocks to watch eBook, and tipped again last week in our weekly wrap.
Broken Hill Mines (ASX: BHM), formerly CBH, surged 21.5% this week as it relisted on the ASX - right as silver held firm above US$39/oz.
BHM is one of the few ASX-listed companies with producing silver-lead assets and a ready-made plant in place.
The market is catching on to the fact that BHM isn't just another relist with a prospective asset - it's a producing operation with direct leverage to silver's current run.
The Wrap
While the broader market spent another week going nowhere, the juniors reminded everyone why this end of town exists in the first place.
AZ9 shareholders watched their stock jump 23% as drilling news from Mongolia hit the wires. Bubalus mapped out more high-grade targets within striking distance of Fosterville. FMR landed the kind of heavyweight director that signals serious intent. And silver gave BHM the spark it needed.
That’s four micro-caps with serious moves or catalysts inside a single week.
We’re not calling the all-clear, but this is how turnarounds usually start. Quietly, with one or two charts ticking up, then a few more. And then suddenly the momentum’s obvious.
The second half of 2025 is just warming up.