@Karmast and @Bear77 I agree with this (@Karmast ) assessment.

While I was delighted to pick up $DUR around $1.00 at the start of its recent run, I don’t see it as anywhere near being overvalued. It’s one I’d like to hold for a long time, understanding of course, that it’s fortunes will ebb and flow as is nearly always the case in this sector.

I have a modest 5.5% stake and am happy to let time do its thing here.

That said, I am also in accumulation mode for $LYL. These are two very different companies, but both appear to have excellent capabilities and management in their respective sector.

Thanks @Karmast , @mikebrisy and @Shapeshifter for that excellent analysis. I think for me it simply comes down to conviction, and I have the highest conviction for LYL because I have followed them for years, held them for most of that time with different weightings in different portfolios, and watched them closely enough that I have a very high opinion of their management, their high insider ownership informing their capital allocation decisions (positively), and most importantly their ability to manage risk when working in some very risky countries - although the risks seem to be higher for the mine owners and operators when the mine is running and clearly profitable than when it and the associated processing plants and infrastructure are being built. I agree that they usually trade at a discount, and one of those reasons is because of where they operate and the high percentage of their revenue that is derived from West Africa. Another is the reduced liquidity because of the reduced free float. I think those things provide me with opportunities to load up at lower levels and trim at higher ones, and collect superb fully franked dividends along the way.

So, for me personally, LYL ticks so many boxes, they provide me with a steady income stream AND capital growth when looked at over any decent time period, like 3, 5, 7 or 10 years. I even hold them in my one-stock portfolio that I manage for our two kids - who are now both adults. And for all of those reasons - great total shareholder returns from a superbly managed company with an excellent industry position and who currently have a number of strong tailwinds, the record gold price being the main one. And they do work across a wide variety of industries including food manufacturing, health (CSL has been a customer) and basically decent-to-large-scale industrial processes where their diagnostic and engineering/design skills can be utilised to improve things or build better plants, but I won't go on - that's all in my stuff over under LYL.

I liked DUR at around $1.20 to $1.25, liked them even more when they got down to $1, bought some here as well as a small position in a real-money portfolio, and made money from selling them at higher levels, and I'm not saying they're expensive now, I'm saying that to me, with what I know about the company, which is a LOT less than I know about companies like LYL and GNG that I have followed closely for over a decade, DUR look fully priced, or to be clearer, reasonably priced. For what they are reporting now. If they can live up to the potential that you have outlined very well there @Karmast then they will look cheap at current levels with the benefit of hindsight when we look back in a few years.

In an ideal world, I would hold DUR for that potential, but I can be a slow learner sometimes, and I have too often made paper profits on companies that I have done "some" research on, and then lost those profits in a New York minute when the company releases an underwhelming update, or lowers guidance, or announces something negative such as losing a major customer or being in dispute with someone over a major contract. Happened with GNG recently after they announced the impact to their revenue of BHP mothballing West Musgrave, which was GNG's largest ongoing EPC contract at the time, but I saw that one coming and used it to load up on GNG during that period of share price weakness.

So my level of conviction is usually correlated to my level of research as well as the time I have been following the company, as long as they haven't done anything that worries me, or are in an industry or situation that worries me. DUR hasn't put a foot wrong, I just don't have the conviction (yet) that they can keep rising as they have over the past 5 months - it's been a strong uptrend, and the nagging thought in the back of my mind is to take some profits when a company has had a run like this, and because it was a relatively small position for me anyway here, I just sold out, with the thought that I may get the opportunity to buy back in at lower levels if they do fall again, but if not, that's also fine. In my real-money portfolio, I sold out in June because I had to liquidate that entire portfolio because it was in a trust structure that needed to be wound up and the proceeds split up, and I didn't buy back in (in July/August) purely because I wanted to greatly simplify my investments - including reducing the number of positions I held - and DUR didn't look like one of my best options at the time - again, purely because I liked some other opportunities more.

My circumstances have changed again in recent weeks - now that my TPD claim through my super fund insurance has been approved and paid - so DUR remain on my watchlist. I do like companies like this, but I do not have a great feel for their management yet, and while their MD has plenty of skin in the game (owning 9.64% of the company), the other three directors have small shareholdings of between 20,000 and 83,000 shares (their MD has almost 24 million shares). There are other Duratec founders or insiders with skin in the game as we have discussed previously, but I would like to see the other three board members eat a little more of their own cooking. But that's not a major issue. DUR is fine, just not one of my highest conviction buys at current levels.

Thanks @Bear77 and that all sounds very sensible as an overall Portfolio approach. Like you, if I don't have real conviction I don't want to own a company and you can't get that conviction off someone else!