Many answers and I will list what comes to mind and list some of my personal examples.
1. Research - eg. Monday Australian Newspaper (IMA @ 55 cents and AGS @ 40 cents); Resource Stocks magazine (UMC @ 25 cents); Fat Prophets Mining (BMN @ 69 cents; PLA @ 90 cents); Hotcopper and other chat sites (eg MAK at 23 cents); and reading daily ASX announcements.
2. Location - eg. IMA, BMN, AGS, BMN & MAK (iron ore) were located either next door to or in-between existing major mines. Therefore, these companies found excellent resources.
3. Existing resource. Our speculative stocks do not necessarily have to be 'speculative'. Our speculative stocks may already have existing defined resources. For example, MUR already has a half share of 500K tonnes of copper metal and 20K tonnes of cobalt. The market cap of MUR is currently $60M and the revenue value of its half share of copper and cobalt is currently worth $3 billion. The issue is they have to mine it, which takes time. No plans for mining are definite right now however their JV partner ABY has commenced a scoping study.
3. Similarly, some companies have a resource and are establishing a mine. Often one can buy 1 year to 3 months prior to mining and still have a very large upside. This is patient investing. To determine the upside, one can look on the company's website and find a broker report. Or when one becomes skilled, one can work the numbers for themselves.
Examples of shares I have bought and sold in up and coming miners include TTY at 30 cents sold at $1.40, WPG at 22 cents sold at $1.40, CUO at 40 cents sold at 95 cents, AGM at 35 cents sold at $1, JML at 45 cents sold at $1.35, PLA at 90 cents sold at $2...
Some up and coming miners or new miners that are currently well priced (ALTHOUGH DO NOT HAVE A GREAT UPSIDE, MAYBE ONLY 100%) are AZC, DON, CUO...
