Nope @tomsmithidg - can't really settle on a solid price target because it depends primarily on the gold price which will still rise but how far and how fast I do not know, and the secondary factors that most play a part in the NST SP would be their succesful completion of the KCGM (Super Pit) upgrade (to over twice its previous annual production capacity) and then the Hemi build in the north of WA (the De Grey Mining assets). Those major projects are going to propel them even higher in terms of their position as one of the world's top ten gold producing companies (by volume of gold produced p.a. and also by market cap).

As one of those top 10 with potential to become a top 5 global gold producer (that is their stated goal from at least one of their pressos last year), they are on everybody's radar who are interested in gold producers globally, so they will get bid up on any positive sentiment uplift around gold. So they will rise as the gold price rises but not in a straight line, i.e. it's certainly correlated, but it's not a direct 1 for 1 correlation because of company-specific stuff, but my own expectation is that there is probably further upside in the company specific stuff so they could rise even more than the gold price in percentage terms if they continue to execute well, particularly on those major projects. Further M&A may also play a part. Another unknown.

They had a series of unfortunate incidents in their last quarter including a major equipment breakdown at one of their mills (Primary Crusher System Breakdown at KCGM/Super Pit), and some other stuff (see here), but that was all temporary, not structural, and is to be expected every now and then when a company has that many operations around Western Australia and also a gold processing hub in Alaska (Pogo) - NST are head and shoulders above EVN in terms of annual gold production and those two are the two largest and most dominant gold companies on the ASX - I do not include Newmont because NEM on the ASX is a secondary listing - Newmont is a U.S. company with their primary listing on the NYSE.

So I am bullish on NST and I hold them, but in terms of short, medium or long term price targets, it is really hard to pin down a number that I could hang my hat on because of all the factors that will impact it, but mostly the gold price.

Are you still accumulating at the current prices then @Bear77 , or have you got a target where you definitely would?

I'm not buying more NST here @tomsmithidg because I think there are currently greater opportunities in the smaller end of the Aussie gold producers right now. For instance, I reckon there's plenty of room for companies like ALK and BC8 to move substantially higher in the short to medium term on the back of gold AND antimony drilling results. Alkane (ALK) produce gold and antimony already, and are finding more, while Black Cat (BC8) are gold producers who also own a significant high-grade antimony deposit in WA - see here: 27 January 2026: BC8: High-grade Antimony Results Continue - Mt Clement announcement.

Another junior I like a lot right now is Catalyst Metals (CYL) who are on target to produce 100 Koz Au this year and to double that to 200 Koz within 3 years:

Source: 27-Jan-2026: CYL: K2 Mine Update announcement.

CYL is today the largest position in my SMSF and BC8 is the second largest (followed by ARB, which is NOT a gold company). I hold larger positions in LYL and GNG outside of my Super (those two are held in my income portfolio/IPF), so CYL and BC8 are my 3rd and 4th largest positions if you add my 4 real money portfolios that I manage together (SMSF, IPF, Speccy portfolio and Kids' portfolio) and look at the combined holdings as one larger portfolio.

In my SMSF, after CYL, BC8 and ARB, I hold (in weighting order, from largest to smallest positions as of tonight) GMD, VAU, EVN, RMS, NST, DBI, ALK, CMM, NWH & FFM. If you strip out the non-gold/copper-producers-and/or-developers (so remove ARB, DBI & NWH), and add my gold sector positions from my SPF (speccy portfolio), where I hold MEK (a new producer) plus a bunch of gold project developers and explorers, my current direct gold sector exposure is:

That's using the closing share prices today (28th Jan 2026). The highlighted "Value %" column shows my current weighting to that company as a percentage of my entire combined portfolio positions, using Market Value, and it doesn't add up to 100% (it's less) because I also hold other non-gold-related companies that I have not included in this list.

And that percentage is based on the current market value rather than on my capital invested. For instance, based on my capital invested, GMD would only be a 1.56% weighting for me, but it's a 5.47% weighting based on its current market value, because GMD's share price now is +391.24% higher than my average buy price.

I tend to trim positions as they rise, so CYL and BC8 are my largest gold exposures currently (except for those "picks-and-shovels-plays" on gold down the bottom, LYL and GNG, the two Engineering and Construction companies directly exposed to gold) and that's because I see more upside in the nearer term from Catalyst and Black Cat than from the larger gold producers.

AZY has recently (today actually) overtaken MEK as the largest position in my SPF (speccy portfolio) because Antipa (AZY) has had a share price surge of around +37% in the past couple of weeks - they closed at 61 cps on January 13th, and today (the 28th) they closed at 83.5 cps. MEK closed at 30.5 cps a week ago (21st) and I trimmed some on that day, and they (Meeka Metals) closed back down at 26.5 cps today (28th), so MEK deserves to be the largest position in my SPF, and usually is, but today it's AZY.

VAU wouldn't normally be such a high weighting for me, as I don't rate their management very highly, however I'm in Vault (VAU) for a shorter term trade right now based on the positive market re-rate they are getting which is likely impacted by their MD (Luke Tonkin) recently announcing his retirement and that development (and some others) possibly paving the way for GMD to finally gobble them up, which I've talked about here before a few times; The only M&A deal that makes even more sense to me than GMD acquiring VAU is GGP (Greatland Resources) acquiring AZY - which I've also talked about here. Both of those potential scenarios is very much common knowledge across the industry and is predicted to happen this calendar year by various analysts and fundies that I follow - it just makes so much logical sense for all parties.

I usually avoid M&A potential being an important part of any investment thesis of mine, but in AZY's and VAU's cases I'm prepared to make exceptions because even if the M&A doesn't happen, I believe they will both run hard at some point on the expectation of M&A, and that would be enough for me to make a decent profit. I'm already in the green on both and they're both still running. AZY was up +13.6% today on the back of their Quarterly Activities/Appendix 5B Cash Flow Reports. Onwards and Upwards.

Double digit percentage rises like that in a single day are less likely with Australia's largest gold producers like NST and EVN. It does happen with the majors occasionally, but it happens much more often with the juniors, and I am thinking that there is still some catching up to do with our junior and mid-cap (second tier) goldies when you compare their SP rises to those of the majors and look at how much more gold they are likely to be producing in 5 years compared to how much they are producing now.

With NST, they ARE going to be producing significantly more gold once the KCGM upgrade is complete, fully commissioned and ramped up, and then a heap more gold production again once Hemi is in full production, but Hemi could well be more than 5 years away in terms of full production, and the market has already priced some of that in with NST - due to the very significant gold resources and reserves increase that the De Grey acquisition delivered to NST last year, and also in anticipation of their move up the rankings of the world's top 10 gold producers over the next 5 to 10 years.

So I still want to hold NST - and I do hold a significant position (currently a 4.8% weighting across my real money portfolios as shown in the table above) - but I'm not buying more currently at these levels, even though I expect them to go higher from here, because I'm thinking there are other ASX-listed goldies that look cheaper and have more near-term upside, IMO.

So it's a case of where can I get the biggest bang for my bucks right now without losing exposure to very well run companies with great industry positions like NST?

So NST is no longer one of my top 5 positions at this moment, but they're still one of my top 3 favourite gold companies - alongside GMD & RMS.

It's just about adjusting my current weightings to try to maximise gains at this point in time for me.

Thanks @Bear77 , my attraction to NST is that it is an actual producer, while I've done well out on some explorers, FFM for example, I'm not confident enough to take larger positions. I'm looking for a gold company that I am comfortable taking a larger position in, but am concerned that I'm coming in too late in the cycle now.

For somebody in your position @tomsmithidg I would say buy some now before they break through $30, either your full allocation or try to dollar cost average (DCA) in, but I have very little doubt NST will be higher in 5 and 10 years time from now, which is why I am maintaining a position. Mind you, if I'm wrong and the gold price is substantially lower in the future then I'll also be wrong about NST being higher. So you need to be bullish on gold to be buying NST here.

You're right to be more wary of explorers and project developers as there is far more risk with those companies, and far less risk with large producers like NST.

You mentioned Firefly (FFM) and they have a brilliant high grade copper project on an island in Newfoundland, Canada, that WILL become a mine - it's a mining friendly part of the world and they have hydro power and port access at their doorstep, so it's a brilliant location and a wonderful deposit, but there's still execution risk - much water to flow under that bridge before they are producing copper from Green Bay. So with a copper/gold project developer like that, you are making a bet that the copper price (and gold to a much lesser extent) will stay elevated or rise further for however many years it takes for them to get the mine and infrastructure built and actually get into production.

Established multi-mine producers like NST are far lower risk. You might not get the same upside that you might get with a company like FFM over the next 5 years, but you'll be able to sleep better at night with NST because there's no way they're going broke, or that they could become unprofitable, unless the gold price dropped by about 80% and stayed down there for an extended period of time, and that's not happening IMO. They might do a chunky CR to develop Hemi at some point, but with companies like FFM, Capital Raises are part of the entry price; you know they're coming, so you also get less dilution with NST than you are going to get with a project developer who is not yet "fully funded through to production".

Hope that helps. I have a greater risk tolerance within the sector right now because I'm so bullish on gold, and copper to a lesser extent, so I'm happy to increase my exposure to riskier companies at this point, to risk it for the biscuit, but that approach won't suit everybody.

Also @tomsmithidg I didn't answer the second half of your question: Are you still accumulating at the current prices then @Bear77, or have you got a target where you definitely would?

So, no I'm not still accumulating NST, as I explained, and in terms of a target where I definitely would be back buying more NST again, I don't have one, as it will all depend on what the relative opportunities across the sector look like at any given time, so to give you an example, even if NST's SP halved, I might be buying something else instead if that company's SP had dropped by more than half and they looked to have more near-term upside. Just as a random example. Short answer is, "it depends..."

I'll try to remember to post something either here in this forum thread or over in the gold thread if I start accumulating more NST again in my SMSF or in any other real money portfolio.

P.S. Interesting that NST opened at $28.30 yesterday (Friday 30th Jan) which was their low of the day, before rising up to a new all-time high of $29.75 during the day and then closing at $28.94, -1.87% lower than their $29.49 close on Thursday, so despite finishing the day lower, they showed relative strength on a day in which plenty of goldies (42 that I counted) had share price drops of worse than -5%, including 6 companies in my Aussie Gold Sector watchlist that had share price falls of between -10% and -12.2% (including two that I hold: BC8 and TCG, and one I recently sold out of: SHN), so there was plenty of red across the sector for a change. My SMSF market value fell by $37 K on the day, which is a decent one day drop, but that only takes it back to just above where it was on Thursday of the previous week (22nd Jan), because there have been so many positive days recently, prior to Friday. Gold is still going higher, and so are most gold companies IMO, but not in a straight line, and not every day.

Insightful as always @Bear77. What are your thoughts of gold miners underperforming in a reflation environment due to rising costs?

As long as the gold price is rising faster than their costs are rising, the unhedged goldies are going to be making more money @Seymourbutts however in terms of a scenario in which costs rise more than the gold price, I heard an analyst on a recent MoM podcast say that the lower cost goldies, and he gave Capricorn (CMM) as an example, are currently making the sort of margins that are normally associated with tech companies, so there's plenty of room for margins to compress from here without any cause for concern. The better gold producers are just printing so much cash right now, and unlike previous booms, they have an eye on cost control this time around, because so many of them nearly went broke in prior years because of a lack of focus on cost control. They have mostly learned their lesson on that front.

As have the better E&C companies and the better mining services contractors, like NWH whose SP got as low as 5 cents in early Feb 2016 and I had sold out before then because I honestly thought they were going to the wall due to their debt, but they pulled through and they lease most of their equipment these days instead of buying it and they have greatly improved many other facets of their risk management and cost controls - which is why I'm back holding them again in my SMSF.

Anyway, pros and cons. The main negative is that goldies are price takers, with little control over what they get for their gold outside of hedging and put options and the like. The main positive is that the gold price is SO high compared to their costs, that there is no fine line here - there's plenty of room for costs to increase and the gold price to reduce before anybody needs to panic. My own expectation is that costs will increase, but that the gold price will continue to rise even more in percentage terms than those costs.

Just my opinion. I've been wrong before, but it's still looking good from my viewpoint.

I was trading live and tried to buy at $28.30 @Bear77 watched it run back over $29 and then snaffled some at $28.51, so finished the day slightly in the green. Really appreciate all the insights you share here mate.