Since US president Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to expedite domestic critical minerals production, junior mining stocks have benefitted from a brighter spotlight, with a greater number of investors keen to identify the next major US resource before the market keys into its intrinsic value, harboring minerals underpinning technologies essential to national security and the green energy transition.
The difficulty here, as Stockhouse’s mining-friendly readers will know, is deriving value and conviction from exploration results, which can be tedious to comb through and esoteric to analyze, factors that can create a margin of safety for meticulous investors unafraid of getting their hands dirty with due diligence.
The key is to get ahead on your homework and keep your watchlist stocked with prospective names, whose histories of increasing evidence in support of economical mineralization significantly de-risks their operations.
To this end, in the first edition of Stockhouse’s Weekly Market Movers of 2026, I’ll put a pair of critical minerals stocks on your radar, where attractive projects, strategic target commodities and proven leadership teams speak highly of the ability to progress along the mining lifecycle.
Green Bridge Metals
Our first junior critical minerals stock, Green Bridge Metals, market capitalization C$30.50 million, is a copper, nickel, titanium, vanadium and platinum group elements explorer active primarily in Minnesota.
This article is disseminated in partnership with critical minerals stocks Green Bridge Metals and AE Fuels. It is intended to inform investors and should not be taken as a recommendation or financial advice.
Green Bridge’s flagship district-scale South Contact zone has been shown to contain bulk-tonnage mineralization, including an estimated 6 million tons of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and 3 million tons of ilmenite, the latter valued at about US$350 per ton, with numerous magnetic anomalies and geophysical anomalies worth follow-up exploration across the zone’s four major critical mineral targets.
The company’s Serpentine nickel-copper property to the northeast hosts a resource of its own, estimated at 280 million tons grading 0.53 per cent copper equivalent (CuEq) inferred and 21.6 million tons grading 0.69 per cent CuEq indicated, and is permitted to drill its way towards a pre-feasibility study in 2026.
Green Bridge rounds off its portfolio with the Chrome-Puddy project in Ontario, where a historical resource of 30 million tons at 0.25-0.28 per cent nickel is complemented by 1.9 kilometres in strike length and several untested conductors as avenues for potential expansion.
A leadership team, including three accomplished geologists and a CEO who has raised more than $10 billion for public and private firms, grants the company a solid chance of growing its multi-commodity resource base – where the ilmenite alone represents more than US$1 billion in the ground – and leaving its micro-cap size behind.
David Suda, president and chief executive officer of Green Bridge Metals, spoke with Coreena Robertson about how the company plans to leverage its diversified critical minerals portfolio towards shareholder value creation. Watch the interview here.
Green Bridge Metals stock (CSE:GRBM) last traded at C$0.16, sporting a 3.33 per cent gain year-over-year.
AE Fuels
A second critical minerals stock putting its best foot forward for long-term value creation is AE Fuels, market capitalization C$11.36 million, which tracks a battery materials-focused explorer keen to supply the power electrification and energy storage markets through a pair of projects in tier-one jurisdictions.
The South Woodie Woodie project in Pilbara, Western Australia, under a 100-per-cent option signed in 2024, encompasses an underexplored 518.5-square-kilometre land package with two manganese deposits – including a compliant resource of 11.3 million tons at 15 per cent manganese – near Woodie Woodie, one of the world’s highest-grade
manganese mines.
Manganese, present in most lithium-ion batteries, is a key component supporting energy density, performance, safety and cost effectiveness. Given China’s control of 96 per cent of refining activity, South Woodie Woodie’s district scale and multi-deposit nature makes it an attractive asset to potentially ease the Western world’s transition to a more independent supply chain.
The company is also advancing the Flourite Ridge fluorspar project in New Mexico, where historic production of more than 106,000 tons, coupled with several prospects spanning more than 7 kilometres and more than 8 past-producing mines, speaks to the property’s outsized upside. A pair of recently discovered mineralized zones averaged 23.5 per cent calcium fluoride (CaF2) across widths of 15 m and 22 m, respectively, with outcrops suggestive of untapped length and tonnage.
Fluorite Ridge, stacked with exploration catalysts, provides investors with data-driven exposure to the critical mineral’s diverse applications across aerospace, nuclear, defense, energy and lithium-ion batteries, with fluorspar being 5-10x more prevalent in the latter than lithium itself across cathode, anode and as an electrolyte salt.
Similarly to manganese, China accounts for a leading 65 per cent of fluourspar production, according to AE’s latest investor presentation, highlighting the need for boosting the free market supply chain with projects across the mining lifecyle.
AE Fuels’ prospective portfolio, squarely aligned with manganese and fluorspar’s status as critical minerals in Australia, the European Union and the United States, and poised to benefit from the US’s heavy reliance on imports to meet domestic demand, sets the company’s leadership team up to leverage its mining experience from exploration to production, plus a tight 41.4 million share count, into positive news flow to fuel share price momentum.
Investors have demonstrated conviction in the critical mineral explorer’s thesis, lifting AE Fuels stock (TSXV:AEF) by 111.54 per cent since listing in December 2025, last trading at C$0.28, setting expectations high as drilling gets underway at both of its properties towards initial economic studies.
Gary Lewis, founder, CEO and executive director of AE Fuels, sat down with Ricki Lee to discuss the company’s exercise of its option to acquire 100 per cent of the South Woodie Woodie project. Watch the interview here.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Monday for a new edition of Weekly Market Movers, where I delve into companies that sat down with Stockhouse for an interview over the past week. Here’s the previous article, in case you missed it.
Join the discussion: Find out what investors are saying about these critical minerals stocks on the Green Bridge Metals Corp. and AE Fuels Corp. Bullboards, and make sure to explore the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
Stockhouse does not provide investment advice or recommendations. All investment decisions should be made based on your own research and consultation with a registered investment professional. The issuer is solely responsible for the accuracy of the information contained herein.
For full disclaimer information, please click here.