u/Aggressive_Rush2357

I don't post company-specific stuff that often because most of what gets shared on these subs is either obvious or thinly researched. But I've been watching LWR long enough now that it feels worth putting some actual thoughts down.

Lake Winn Resources is a Canadian lithium junior with their flagship Little Nahanni project as the core asset in the NWT. The jurisdiction piece matters here more than it might for some commodities. Canadian lithium is increasingly relevant from a supply chain standpoint, particularly for North American battery manufacturers trying to meet domestic content requirements under various trade frameworks. That's not a guarantee of anything but it does mean there's a structural reason for the asset to attract attention beyond just the commodity price.

The resource itself is the foundation of the thesis. The numbers coming out of the Little Nahanni project have been solid, and the geology of the region is well understood. Early-stage lithium juniors live and die by whether the resource is real and scalable; the exploration results here have suggested both.

The valuation case at current prices is straightforward in concept: the market has priced in a lot of continued sector weakness, and the stock is sitting at levels that assume the lithium downturn persists indefinitely. If you believe lithium prices recover on a two to three year horizon as supply growth slows and EV demand continues to build, then the entry point here looks interesting relative to what the asset base is actually worth.

None of this is without risk. Junior miners at this stage carry exploration risk, financing risk, and commodity price risk simultaneously. The lithium market is also not as simple to read as it was in 2022 when everything was going up. But the risk/reward at these levels feels worth paying attention to, especially for anyone with a longer time horizon.

Just sharing what I've been looking at. Anyone else tracking LWR or other Canadian lithium names at these valuations?

If you've been holding lithium names through 2023 and 2024 it's been a rough ride. Prices fell off a cliff from the highs, a number of projects got shelved or pushed out, and the narrative completely flipped from "we'll never have enough lithium" to "there's a massive oversupply coming." Neither extreme was probably right, but sentiment moved hard in both directions.

Here's what I keep coming back to though. The long-term demand thesis hasn't changed. EV adoption is still growing globally, just at a pace that's been choppier in some markets than the 2022 projections suggested. Battery storage for grid applications is scaling faster than most people expected and it's a significant lithium consumer in its own right. And the supply glut narrative, while real in the short term, was always going to be a temporary condition. Projects take years to go from resource to production, and the ones that got shelved during the price downturn aren't going to flip back on quickly when prices recover.

What's changed more recently is that Chinese spot prices have shown some stabilization, which matters because China is the dominant pricing market for lithium chemicals. A few large projects have been delayed or cancelled outright, which tightens the future supply picture. Those aren't guarantees of a price recovery but they're directionally meaningful.

There's a version of the silver bull case that's been around for decades and mostly amounts to monetary system collapse and everyone fleeing to hard assets. That argument has been made so many times without the predicted outcome that it's easy to dismiss the whole silver thesis along with it.

The more interesting case, and the one I think deserves more credit for the move to $75, is the industrial demand story. It's structurally different from anything that's been true historically and it's worth understanding properly.

Solar is the biggest piece. The Silver Institute's data shows photovoltaic manufacturing now accounts for roughly 20% of total silver industrial demand, a share that has grown dramatically over the past five years. The process relies on silver paste to conduct electricity within solar cells. There's active R&D to reduce silver content per panel and panel manufacturers have strong economic incentives to use less of it, but the rate of new solar installations globally is growing faster than the per-unit reduction. Total demand from solar keeps climbing even as per-panel usage edges down. That dynamic is expected to persist for several more years based on current installation pipelines.

Beyond solar: EV charging infrastructure requires silver-intensive components. 5G network equipment uses silver in circuit boards and connectors at scale. Medical devices, water purification membranes, industrial catalysts. These aren't speculative future demand drivers; they're current consumption happening right now and none of it reverses quickly.

Meanwhile the supply constraint is structural rather than cyclical. Primary silver mines are rare. The majority of global production comes as a byproduct of lead, zinc, and copper mining. Silver supply is partially determined by decisions made by base metal producers responding to their own price signals. When the silver price moves, supply can't fully respond because the decision-making sits elsewhere in the value chain.

The combination of growing industrial demand, constrained supply response, and monetary demand during periods of macro uncertainty is what got silver to $75. The industrial piece is what keeps the floor higher than it was in previous cycles.

Done a bit of digging into the Mexican silver producer space lately, and at $75 silver the conversation around which operations are generating real cash flow is a lot more interesting than it was a year ago. The jurisdiction gets more mixed press than it probably deserves for operations that have been running through multiple price cycles with established infrastructure and community relationships.

The names most people default to in Mexico are First Majestic and Coeur Mining, which makes sense given their size and liquidity. But for anyone willing to go smaller, there are producers with more direct leverage to the silver price because they're not hedged to the same degree and their market caps are a fraction of the majors.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver is one I've been watching. They operate at Guitarra, which is a historical mine with real infrastructure rather than a greenfield project. That distinction matters more than people sometimes acknowledge. Year one of any mining operation is almost always messy; commissioning costs, ramp-up inefficiencies, unexpected ground conditions. They're in year two of full production now, which is when you actually start to see what the operation is capable of in terms of throughput and cost control.

At $75 silver the margin picture for a producer like this is genuinely compelling. If their all-in sustaining costs are in a reasonable range, the gap between cost and revenue at current prices is meaningful. The share price has been responding to the silver move in the way you'd want to see from a producing miner. The market cap is still small enough that there's real upside if silver holds here and the operation keeps executing.

Not financial advice, just sharing what's been on my radar. Curious what other people are watching in the Mexican or Latin American silver producer space at these price levels.

Been watching silver run hard over the last little while and I'm still a bit surprised by how measured the retail conversation feels relative to the actual price level. $75 silver is not a small number. That's a move that should be generating serious noise, and yet a lot of the discussion still seems to be centred on gold and what central banks are doing rather than on silver specifically.

The gold/silver ratio has compressed meaningfully to get us here, but depending on where gold is sitting, there's a case that further compression is still on the table. Historically the ratio has reached the 40 to 50x range during periods of genuine silver outperformance. If gold stays elevated and silver continues to run, the ratio could have more room to move than most people are modelling.

The industrial demand side of the story deserves a lot of credit for where silver is today. Solar panel production has been running at serious volume, and silver paste in photovoltaic cells isn't something you can easily substitute at current efficiency thresholds. EV charging infrastructure, defence electronics, grid-scale battery storage; these are all pulling on the same supply base. The demand profile is structurally different to what it was five or ten years ago and that matters for thinking about where prices can sustain.

Supply hasn't kept pace either. Most silver comes as a byproduct of base metal mining, which means supply decisions are being made by copper and zinc producers responding to their own price signals. Silver can't fully respond to its own demand signal the way a primary commodity would. That structural constraint doesn't disappear because the price has moved.

I'm watching to see whether this level holds and whether the broader investor community starts paying attention to the metal the way it deserves at these prices. Anyone else positioning for a continuation, or starting to think about taking some off the table?

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is how narrow the actual investable silver producer universe really is when you strip away the explorers and the royalty names. Most people who want silver equity exposure end up in one of three places: a major like First Majestic or Pan American, a streaming company like Wheaton, or a junior explorer with no revenue and a five year runway at best. The middle ground of actual producing juniors with growing output and real financials is surprisingly small.

That gap matters more right now because the macro setup for silver is genuinely strong. Industrial demand from solar manufacturing has become structural rather than cyclical, the Silver Institute has been reporting consecutive annual supply deficits, and new primary silver supply can't come online fast enough to close that gap. When you have that kind of fundamental backdrop the leverage you want is in the producers, not the royalty names that are already fully valued, and not the explorers that are years away from contributing any supply.

The challenge is finding the producers that actually have the operational track record to back up a thesis. That's a short list on the TSX-V right now.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver is one I've been following closely through their La Guitarra ramp in Mexico. They just closed out their first full year of commercial production: $25M USD in revenue, $6M adjusted EBITDA, positive cash from operations, and revenue growing every single quarter through 2025. Plant expansion commissioning in Q2 takes throughput up 50%, a second mine acquisition from First Majestic closes next month, and Franklin Templeton and Eric Sprott are already on the register. Still under $2 on the TSX-V.

Honestly the silver story right now doesn't get nearly enough attention relative to what the fundamentals actually look like. Solar demand is eating silver at a pace nobody was really modeling a few years ago, you've got consecutive supply deficits according to the Silver Institute, and the mining side simply can't respond quickly enough to close that gap. New mines take years. The supply isn't coming.

What frustrates me a bit is that when most people think about silver equity exposure they jump straight to the big royalty names, which are solid businesses but you're not getting much leverage at these valuations, or they end up in some explorer that's a decade away from a production decision. The actual junior producer space, companies pulling silver out of the ground right now and growing, is surprisingly thin.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver is one worth paying attention to in that context. First full year of commercial production at La Guitarra in Mexico just wrapped up: $25M USD in revenue, $6M adjusted EBITDA, positive cash from operations, and revenue grew every single quarter through 2025. They're expanding plant capacity by 50% by end of Q2, closing on a second mine from First Majestic next month, and Franklin Templeton and Eric Sprott are already on the register. Still trading under $2 on the TSX-V.

If you're building silver exposure and want something with actual operational momentum rather than just an exploration story or a royalty multiple, the junior producer landscape is worth mapping out. There aren't many names that fit the profile right now.

Has anyone been following SM.V closely through their La Guitarra ramp? They dropped their full year 2025 results this morning and I've been going through the numbers. The top line story is genuinely impressive for a mine that had zero commercial production revenue in 2024: $25M USD in net revenues, $6M adjusted EBITDA, $4.09M cash from operations, and gross profit growing every single quarter from $1.36M in Q1 to $3.72M in Q4. Revenue followed the same pattern, going from $4.96M in Q1 to $8.32M in Q4. $17.3M cash on hand at year end.

The part I keep coming back to is the cost side. Cash costs went from $21.84/AgEq oz in Q1 to $33.70 in Q4, averaging $27.90 for the full year. Management attributed it to a stronger Mexican peso against the USD weighing on their MXN denominated costs, extended rainy season power outages, a slower December due to the holiday shutdown, and the ramp costs associated with bringing Coloso and Nazareno online. Backup diesel generators are being installed across the operation now to deal with the power issue going forward.

The bull case on costs is that two things improve simultaneously heading into 2026. First, Coloso and Nazareno both carry significantly higher estimated grades than the main Guitarra veins, so as those stopes reach full production the grade profile of the mill feed should improve and bring down the cost per ounce. Nazareno just finished blast hole drilling with full long-hole stope production expected to begin in late April, and Coloso has six active stopes running across two veins with dewatering underway to unlock lower levels in H2 2026. Second, the Phase 1 plant expansion commissions by end of Q2 2026, taking throughput from 500 tpd to 750-800 tpd. More tonnes through the same fixed cost base should help the per-ounce economics meaningfully. Phase 2 takes them to 1,200-1,500 tpd by Q3 2027.

On top of that they're closing the Del Toro silver mine acquisition from First Majestic in May, backed by a CAD$57.5M financing that brought in Franklin Templeton, Eric Sprott, and Commodity Capital. Management has framed Del Toro as a second La Guitarra restart, and given how La Guitarra's first year tracked, that's an interesting comparison to think through.

Curious what others think. Does the expansion throughput increase do enough to offset the cost pressure, or does the grade improvement from Coloso and Nazareno need to carry more of the weight there? And has anyone looked at how the Del Toro deal changes the combined cost and production profile once both assets are running?

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver restarted the La Guitarra mine in Mexico at the start of 2025 with no prior full year of commercial production on the books. They just closed out that first year with $25M USD in net revenues, $6M in adjusted EBITDA, and $4.09M of cash generated from operations.

What stands out to me is the consistency. Revenue went up every single quarter: $4.96M, $5.76M, $5.92M, $8.32M. Gross profit followed the same pattern. Head grades improved every quarter as they developed Coloso and Nazareno, two higher-grade centres within the mine complex that carry significantly better grades than the main Guitarra veins.

The plant expansion is underway. Phase 1 targets 750-800 tpd from the current 500 tpd rate, with commissioning expected by end of Q2 2026. The ball mill installation is planned for May. Phase 2 gets them to 1,200-1,500 tpd by Q3 2027. Bigger throughput at higher head grades with improving fixed cost coverage is a pretty straightforward path to a much better cost per ounce.

They're also buying the Del Toro silver mine from First Majestic, expected to close in May. CAD$57.5M financing to support it brought in Franklin Templeton, Eric Sprott, and Commodity Capital.

Cash costs did climb through the year, finishing Q4 at $33.70/AgEq oz, which management tied to peso strength, rainy season power disruptions, and the ramp costs at the newer stopes. The generator situation is being addressed. Worth keeping an eye on when Q1 2026 comes out.

For anyone paying attention to silver and looking at which smaller producers are actually building something real.

Genuinely asking because I've been watching SM.V for a while and the setup looks pretty compelling to me, but I want to know if there's something I'm not seeing.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver restarted La Guitarra in Mexico from a standing stop at the beginning of 2025. No revenue in 2024 outside of a test program. First full year of commercial production just wrapped up with $25M USD in net revenues, $6M adjusted EBITDA, $4.09M cash from operations, and gross profit growing every single quarter: $1.36M, $1.69M, $2.10M, $3.72M.

They're closing on the Del Toro silver mine from First Majestic in May, which doubles their asset base. A plant expansion takes them from 500 tpd to 750-800 tpd by end of Q2, then to 1,200-1,500 tpd by Q3 2027. Higher-grade stopes at Coloso and Nazareno are ramping up now. Franklin Templeton, Eric Sprott, and Commodity Capital are in the share registry.

The thing I keep coming back to is that a company with this profile, actual production, growing revenue, institutional backers, and a clearly mapped expansion timeline, is still sitting under $2 on the TSX-V.

Cash costs are climbing, which is the main concern I have. They went from $21.84/AgEq oz in Q1 to $33.70 in Q4. Management blames peso strength and weather-related power issues. The expansion itself should bring costs down via scale once it's online, but that's the thing to watch.

What's the bear case here that I'm missing?

Sierra Madre just released their Q4 and year-end 2025 financials. The base case is already solid: $25M in revenue, growing gross profit every quarter, $17.3M cash, and actual net income of $8.13M. But what has me paying close attention right now is the catalyst stack lined up for the rest of 2026.

First, the Phase 1 plant expansion commissioning is targeted for end of Q2 2026. The ball mill is being installed in May. This takes throughput from 500 tpd to 750-800 tpd. At current silver prices, that's a meaningful step up in revenue capacity and costs per ounce should drop as fixed costs spread over more tonnes.

Second, the Del Toro acquisition from First Majestic is closing in May 2026. This is a second operating silver mine. Management has explicitly said they plan to replicate the La Guitarra restart playbook, and they're doing it with $17M+ in cash and a freshly closed CAD$57.5M financing behind them.

Third, Nazareno is entering full production right now. Long-hole stope production at the 180 level was expected to begin in late April. Nazareno and Coloso both carry significantly higher estimated grades than the main Guitarra veins, so getting those stopes fully online changes the grade and cost profile heading into the expansion.

Fourth, the East District exploration program kicks off in H2 2026, with over 30,000 metres of drilling planned. This is the first modern drill campaign at La Guitarra's East District. Resource additions at an operating mine are a different conversation than grassroots exploration.

Each one of these on its own would move the needle for a company this size. The fact that they're all stacked into the next 12 months is what has me watching closely.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver dropped their full year 2025 results today and the story keeps getting better.

Revenue grew every single quarter of 2025, going from $4.96M in Q1 to $8.32M in Q4. Cash from operations was $4.09M. They had $17.3M cash at year end before the Del Toro acquisition closes in May. Net income was $8.13M.

The La Guitarra plant expansion is targeting 750-800 tpd by end of Q2 2026, up from 500 tpd currently. Ball mill installation is next month. Phase 2 gets them to 1,200-1,500 tpd by Q3 2027. Nazareno is entering full long-hole stope production basically now, and it carries meaningfully higher grades than the main mine veins.

Franklin Templeton and Eric Sprott were in the last raise. TSX Venture named them a top 50 company for 2026. The stock is still sitting under $2.

Silver is at current prices. A growing primary silver producer with institutional backing, a second mine closing next month, and a plant expansion commissioning by June isn't priced for what's coming.

There's a lot of talk about silver supply deficits and where the price is headed, but not much conversation about the companies that are actually producing the metal and generating real revenue from it. Sierra Madre Gold and Silver is one of them.

They restarted the La Guitarra mine in Mexico at the start of 2025 and just reported their first full year of operations: 628,000 AgEq ounces sold, $25M USD in net revenues, $6M in adjusted EBITDA, and positive cash from operations.

Revenue grew every quarter of the year. Head grades improved every quarter. They're in the middle of a plant expansion that increases throughput by 50% by mid-2026, with a second phase doubling that again by 2027. They're also closing on the Del Toro silver mine from First Majestic in May, which makes them a two-asset Mexican silver producer.

The last raise brought in Franklin Templeton, Eric Sprott, and Commodity Capital. The TSX Venture Exchange named them a top 50 company for 2026 based on 264% share price appreciation and 342% market cap growth in 2025.

If silver's macro setup is as strong as a lot of people here believe, having exposure to a company that's actually pulling silver out of the ground, growing production quarter over quarter, and sitting on $17.3M cash heading into a major expansion cycle seems worth understanding.

I've been following SM.V for a while and this morning's release confirmed a lot of what I was expecting, so I figured I'd break it down for anyone who hasn't dug into it yet.

They restarted a Mexican silver mine from scratch at the start of 2025, grew revenue every single quarter, hit $25M USD in net revenues for the year, and did it while simultaneously planning a major plant expansion and acquiring a second mine. That's a lot to execute in one year.

Revenue went from $4.96M in Q1 to $8.32M in Q4, a 68% increase across the year. That's not a one-quarter spike, that's a genuine operating ramp with improving head grades each quarter. Gross profit also grew every quarter: $1.36M, $1.69M, $2.10M, $3.72M. The trajectory is real.

Adjusted EBITDA came in at $6.03M for the year versus a loss of $1.99M the prior year. Net income was $8.13M, which included a $6.1M deferred tax recovery, but even stripping that out they generated $4.09M of cash from operations. Cash position at year end was $17.3M.

They're expanding the La Guitarra plant from 500 tpd to 750-800 tpd by end of Q2 2026. A used ball mill is being refurbished now with installation planned for May. Phase 2 would take them to 1,200-1,500 tpd by Q3 2027. If those timelines hold, the per-ounce cost profile improves meaningfully through economies of scale, especially with head grades also trending up as they access Coloso and Nazareno.

The Del Toro acquisition from First Majestic is expected to close in May 2026, which would give them a second operating asset. Management has framed it as replicating the La Guitarra playbook at a mine First Majestic brought to a much more developed state before selling.

The last raise included Franklin Templeton, Eric Sprott, and Commodity Capital. That's not retail FOMO money.

The one thing I'd flag is that cash costs rose through the year, from $21.84/AgEq oz in Q1 to $33.70 in Q4. Management attributed it to a stronger Mexican peso, power outages from the rainy season, and ramp costs at Coloso and Nazareno. Backup diesel generators are being installed now. The cost trajectory is worth watching when Q1 2026 results drop.

Overall this is one of the few junior silver producers in the market with actual revenue, actual growth, and actual institutional backing. At current silver prices, the expansion timeline makes this worth keeping on your radar. Do your own diligence.

Silver has been running deficits for several years now, but price has not reflected that in a clean or consistent way.

On the physical side, the setup is fairly straightforward.

Industrial demand has held up, sitting in the ~650–680 million ounce range, and a growing portion of that is coming from solar. Photovoltaic demand alone has moved from roughly ~80–90 million ounces a few years ago to closer to ~180–200 million ounces more recently.

That is not a small change. It is a structural shift in how silver is being used.

At the same time, supply has not really responded.

Mine production has been relatively flat, generally in the ~820–840 million ounce range, and a large portion of that is tied to other metals. Because silver is often produced as a byproduct, higher prices do not immediately translate into higher output.

So you end up with a market that has been running deficits in the background for multiple years.

In most commodities, that kind of setup would show up more directly in price.

But silver is not a typical commodity.

It still trades heavily off macro. Real rates, currency strength, and flows into gold all play a major role. So even if the physical market is tightening, price can lag if capital is not moving into the space.

That creates a disconnect.

You have:

• sustained deficits
• demand shifting more toward industrial use
• supply that is not particularly flexible

But price still behaving like a macro-driven asset.

That usually does not last forever.

What tends to happen is that the fundamentals build quietly, and then once macro starts to align with that setup, the move happens quickly rather than gradually.

Right now it still feels like the market is focused on the macro side, while the physical side continues tightening underneath.

The gold to silver ratio closed Q1 2026 at one of the wider levels seen in recent cycles.

For context, this ratio measures how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. When it reaches extremes, it has historically reverted, although the timing is not always immediate.

https://preview.redd.it/kl94hkosamtg1.png?width=888&format=png&auto=webp&s=4655524f0f47fdfd003f7b9678c795a90c7152e7

Looking at the longer-term trend, a few things stand out:

• Periods where the ratio spikes tend to be followed by meaningful compression
• Those reversals are often sharp once they begin, rather than gradual
• The move back typically comes from silver outperforming, not gold declining

What is notable in the current setup:

• Gold has already had a strong run, supported by macro uncertainty and central bank demand
• Silver has lagged despite improving industrial demand, particularly from solar
• The ratio has remained elevated for a sustained period, which historically builds pressure for a reversion

We may already be seeing the early stages of that shift based on the recent move lower, but historically these phases tend to play out over time once momentum changes.

Not a timing call, but structurally this is a level where the ratio has been worth paying attention to.

Curious how others are viewing silver vs gold heading into Q2.

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