Lion Selection Group’s (ASX:LSX) patented investment clock has ticked over with the “boom just getting started”, the firm’s Executive Chairman Robin Widdup says.
Speaking at Lion’s annual general meeting Widdup says the Lion Investment Clock has been adjusted to place the mining cycle smack bang on the ‘mergers’ phase with the clock ticking towards ‘cash takeovers’ and ‘boom’ just on the horizon.
The cycle tracker is Lion’s patented mining clock and is central to the firm’s investment strategy. The company closely monitors the mining cycle via the timepiece and aims to align investments and exits with mining busts and booms to take best advantage of weak markets to invest and strong markets to sell.
Widdup sees 2026 as a “promising” year for junior miners and explorers, with a strong gold price – sitting at US$4,184 ($6,398) per ounce – and the interest in base and critical metals.
“There will be challenges, China dominates many of the metal markets, power costs have risen substantially, permitting is ever longer and more complex,” he says.
During 2025, Lion has nearly doubled its share price, starting the year at about $0.53 per share to $0.91 as of 11.30am AEST today.
“The credit for that goes equally to a rising tide created by a strong gold price and the efforts of the Lion and investee team,” Widdup says.
Over the past month, gold’s price has increased 6.34% and is up 57.29% compared to the same time last year, as reported by Trading Economics.
The Lion Investment Clock depicts the mining cycle according to liquidity indicators that are diagnostic of the different stages of the cycle. Liquidity is the amount of investor capital available to buy shares of miners and invest in equity fundraisings.
When the cycle crashes, the time is 12 o’clock – midnight – and equity prices of miners and explorers collapse as liquidity dries up. Lion Selection Group notes most mining busts are comparatively short (compared with booms), and end when mining equities adopt a positive trend.
According to Lion, a crash generally results from a catalyst which is most obvious in hindsight that causes investors to sell mining equities.
Historically catalysts have included market crashes such as in 1987 and the Global Financial Crisis in 2007, commodity price weakening (2011), or investors becoming disenfranchised with the profitability of miners (as occurred between 1997–1998, and 2011–2015).
Legendary natural resource investor Rick Rule told Mining.com.au in a wide-range interview, the best way to visualise the impending bull market clocked by Lion is by envisaging a circus master’s whip.
Picturing the handle of the whip, well the front of the whip moves first, that’s gold. The next thing that whips past the circus master’s shoulder are the biggest and highest quality companies in the world to move next, pulled by gold.
“Then the best of the rest move. Then the developers move. Then the penny dreadfuls move. This follows a predictable pattern with each stage of the rip whip,” Rule said.
“When they move, they move faster and they move further. But the whip moves qualitatively.”
Lion Selection Group, founded in 1997 by Robin Widdup, has been an early shareholder and contributed to the growth of a long list of successful mining companies.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Lion Selection Group
