Sunday 16th February 2025: With gold hitting new all-time record highs every week lately, I thought I'd have a look back at how some of Australia's better known gold companies have fared over the past 12 months, compared to the gold price. So firstly, here's what the gold price has done:

Aussie Dollar Gold Price on the left and US$ gold on the right.

It's just over 50% up in A$ and a little over 45% up in US$:

On the chart below, I've compared the share price movements over the past 12 months of 14 well known ASX-listed gold producers against the Global X Physical Gold Bullion ETF, ticker code: GOLD on the ASX, which is really an ETP (Exchange Traded Product) not an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund), but ETPs tend to get grouped with ETFs.

GOLD (the ETP/ETF) was up +50.48% and 8 of the 14 gold producers did better than that, while 6 did worse.

The top three performers were Genesis Minerals (GMD, +116.39%), Evolution Mining (EVN, +108.55%) and West African Resources (WAF, +102.84%). I hold GMD & EVN, but not WAF.

There are a couple of 12 month performance percentages hidden by other companies' results there (above) - Capricorn Metals (CMM) finished up +78.65%, Perseus Mining (PRU) finished up +65.60% and Northern Star Resources (NST) finished the 12 month period up +41.03%.

There was only one that had a negative return, Bellevue Gold (BGL), whose management lost a heap of credibility last year when they did a capital raising immediately after a share price rise that came right after they said they were fully funded and didn't need to raise any fresh capital. This was the second time in two years they had assured investors they did not need to raise money, and then announced a new CR within weeks. The ground at their Bellevue underground gold mine is also very hard and even though they have one of the best underground gold mining contractors there in Bill Beament's Develop Global (DVP), the development drives have taken a good deal longer than Bellevue management initially anticipated. From the market's POV however, Bellevue management can't be trusted, except to overpromise and then underdeliver, something they have been making a habit of.

However, if DVP's Bill Beament is to be believed (see here), they've turned a corner at Bellevue now and the jumbos are making impressive month-on-month improvements in terms of development metres (in the past two months), and BGL might be due for a positive market re-rating soon. I do not hold BGL, but I'm planning to get back into DVP soonish.

OK, as you can see, that graph above was getting a little crowded, so I bumped a number of goldies off that one and instead put them in the following graph:

That one (above) is mostly producers plus a couple of gold project developers as well, and all with gains between +38.33% (Vault Minerals, VAU) and +100% (FireFly Metals, FFM) except for poor old Resolute Mining (RSG) whose SP was up over +140% in October before their MD and two other RSG executives were detained for almost 2 weeks in Mali and the company was shaken down by the Mali Junta (military rulers) for US$160 million in total ($A250 million) for additional taxes and royalties and so forth that the Malian authorities claimed RSG owed to them from RSG's gold production at their Syama Gold Mine in Mali. After his release from Mali, RSG's MD/CEO, Terry Holohan, who is a UK resident, took personal leave, and then quit. RSG's CFO had stepped up into the CEO role and will now also become RSG's MD. Not sure if he's planning on visiting their Syama mine in Mali any time soon. RSG finished the 12 month period down -1.41% after being up over +140% 4 months earlier.

The following graph shows a few more losers (Citigold Corporation, CTO, -11.11% & Strickland Metals, STK, -20.45%) plus an underperformer (Beacon Minerals, BCN, +13.04%) and some of the goldies whose share prices were more volatile and choppy than many of their peers:

Turaco Gold (TCG) looks good, and it's really there on this graph to provide some context, so a baseline of what we want to see in a goldie over the past 12 months, a two-bagger (up +200%) even if they did it twice, first in October, then down to "only" +120% in late December, and now back up again at +204.17%.

Contrast that with the third best on that graph, Yandal Resources (YRL) who were down -22% in early October, up +261% only one month later in early November, and finished up +90.48%; that's one wild rollercoaster ride for YRL shareholders!

St Barbara (SBM) was also a wild ride, up almost 100% in April, down to +30% in June & July, then climbing to over +200% in October and finishing up just +58.06%. SBM sold all of their best assets (their Leonora assets) to Genesis (GMD) in mid-2023 and they've now decided to divest their "Atlantic" Assets as well, being their various gold projects along Moose River in Nova Scotia, Canada, through either a sale or a spin out (into a new company), so all St Barbara are going to have after that is Simberi in PNG, and I don't think they've officially greenlighted their "Simberi Sulphide" upgrade project yet - perhaps that's why they need to sell off the Atlantic assets, to fund the Simberi plant upgrade to be able to process the sulphide ore there on Simberi Island - the plant can only currently process oxide ore, which they are fast running out of. They have heaps of sulphide ore but they've been dragging their feet on the FID for that plant upgrade, most likely because the costs are so significant. SBM is a value trap IMO - without much value; they keep highlighting their blue sky potential, but their net tangible assets (NTA) and book value keeps shrinking and they aren't making money - and they need to spend significant millions before they can make any money again. They might come good one day, but they're a long way from being one of the best gold companies listed on the ASX. They aren't even in the top 30.

From the rediculous to the sublime, below we have the two-baggers (other than TCG which was also a two-bagger but is in the graph above) and one three-bagger (Ora Banda Mining, OBM) over the past 12 months, plus Spartan Resources (SPR) which at +174.30% is getting up there and was a two-bagger in October, December and January at various times, as the red line shows.

I have made some good money in Meeka Metals (MEK) over recent months, however I haven't held any of the others on that graph above in any of my real money portfolios, except for Spartan (SPR) which I have had some indirect exposure to through holding Ramelius (RMS) who own 19.9% of SPR. I do have a tiny (like, miniscule) PNR position here on SM which I trade every now and then for fun, but not lately, however I haven't held any PNR (Pantoro) shares in any real money portfolios for a couple of years now. I've looked at Black Cat Syndicate (BC8) a few times, however I chose to invest in Catalyst (CYL) instead of Black Cat in the end. Speaking of...

That's the best goldie of the ones I follow: Catalyst Metals (CYL), who were up a whopping +719.05% for the 12 months.

If I add CYL to any of those other graphs, the scaling changes and everything else just bunches up and you can't read the graphs at all, so they get a graph almost all to themselves. Catalyst closed at $0.525 on Feb 16th 2024, and one year later they are $4.30/share; they've 7-bagged in a year. Unfortunately I was in them for a good time, not a long time, so while I participated in some of that, I missed out on most of it, getting in on them too late, and jumping off too early. Still, it was fun for a while.

The worst was Bulletin Resources (BNR) who do own some gold prospects plus some shares in Ramelius Resources (RMS), Matsa Resources (MAT) and Auris Minerals (AUR) which are worth around $3.5m (in total) or were at December 31st. However BNR appear to be divesting their gold assets now and have been focusing mostly on rare earths (REEs/REOs) and lithium, particularly lithium; they own the Ravensthorpe Lithium Project (RLP) which is located 12km southwest and along strike of Arcadium's Mt Cattlin lithium mine (Rio Tinto is in the process of acquiring Arcadium). BNR's RLP hosts outcropping high grade spodumene bearing pegmatites and BNR are keen to get stuck into some initial drilling of those pegmatites to determine their potential economic importance (to see if they've got something there that can be viably mined), however BNR have encountered ongoing permitting issues and are not able to get in and do any of that drilling. Despite the EPA apparently not having any issues with BNR's drilling plans, in April 2024 WA's DEMIRS (Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety) advised it had refused to grant Bulletin’s Native Vegetation Clearing Permit (NVCP) application which is required to clear access for tracks and drill pads to allow drilling to progress at Ravensthorpe. BNR are appealing this decision however they have been advised that the hearing of the appeal has been delayed it won't be heard before March.

Which is all to say that while BNR are the worst performing "goldie" of the ones I follow, they are hardly even a goldie now, as they have been divesting their gold assets and moving into lithium, and if that doesn't work out for them, possibly rare earth oxides up in WA's Kimberly region will be their next area of focus, as they do have a project up there also.

Finally, I've included OzAurum Resources (OZM) in that graph above as well. OZM is a WA explorer focused on gold, lithium and rare earth elements (REEs), so similar to BNR, however unlike BNR, OZM have been finding some good gold in recent weeks, so they went from being -68% down to being +107% up and are now back down at +56.25% over the past 12 months; When they reported those gold hits they went up +592.3% from a low of 2.6 cents per share (cps) to a high of 18 cps in under 1 month! They closed on Friday at 12.5 cps, as gravity has started kicking in; what goes up tends to come back down if they can't keep finding more gold of similar or higher grades.

While OZM did 5-bag (and almost 6-bagged) in just 4 weeks (from the 13th Jan to 10th Feb), it's nothing but a blip on the radar compared to what Catalyst Metals have achieved, and Catalyst aren't just exploring for gold, they actually own gold mines and gold mills (gold processing plants):

Think I might have to buy back in to CYL if I get a decent dip.

That's it for tonight gold bugs.

Bit of food for thought there I reckon.

The old argument about whether it's better to hold physical gold or gold producers is not straightforward. If you're in the right companies you'll do better than holding physical gold, but not all gold companies do outperform the gold price clearly. Most of the time the majority of them tend to underperform the gold price and only the best ones outperform, which is due to both sentiment and track records of poor capital allocation decisions by many gold miner management teams historically - burning through cash instead of returning it to shareholders.

What we've seen in the past 12 months is a bit of catch up where most of the better gold mining companies have outperformed the rising gold price because their SPs had basically gone nowhere during the previous year while the gold price was rising strongly. Now we are finally getting that leveraged exposure that you are supposed to get with gold producers who own hundreds of thousands or millions of ounces of gold that is still underground but profitably mineable.

Some of them (like RSG and SBM) still look unappealing to me, but the majority of the better ones are doing really well now.

And there are always a few speccy goldies who can double their market cap in a single day with some good gold hits, for those who like that level of excitement and risk.

My own risk tolerance has moderated somewhat over the years and I take far less risks now, so my current exposure is all to gold PRODUCERS at this point in time, plus one developer (DEG) who is under takeover offer from a gold producer I already own shares in (NST).

But it's a smorgasbord - something for everyone really, as long as you want that exposure to gold. And why wouldn't you? [Rhetorical - no need to answer]

Just choose wisely. Don't invest in the next RSG, BNR or STK.

I really missed a trick with Gold's multi decade bull run.

I very much subscribed to Buffets view of it being non productive. I missed the monetary and macro angle to it completely.

Well played to the gold bugs.

Thursday 6th Feb 2025:

Will Gold Reach A$5,000/oz? Ft. Jeremy McGovern

CHAPTERS

0:00:00 G'day, Gov

0:02:20 Blackstone picks up Mankayan

0:08:09 Footy vs Mining for Jeremy McGovern

0:17:44 Trade war updates

0:27:40 Gold price action

-------------------------------

DISCLAIMER: All information in this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only and is of general nature only.

The hosts of Money of Mine (MoM) are not financial professionals. MoM and our Contributors are not aware of your personal financial circumstances. Before making any investment decision, you should consult a licensed financial, legal or tax professional.

MoM doesn’t operate under an Australian financial services licence and relies on the exemption available under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) in respect of any information or advice given. MoM strive to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this podcast but we don’t make any representation or warranty that it’s accurate or up to date. Any views expressed by the hosts of MoM are their opinion only and may contain forward looking statements that may not eventuate.

MoM will not accept any liability whatsoever for any direct or indirect loss arising from any use of information in this podcast.

----------------------------------

It's been a decent decade.

Trav & JD are still in Africa - hopefully staying away from Mali.

Wednesday 5th Feb, 2025: At least 12 Goldies made new year-highs today (and a physical gold ETF):

And here's one I'd never heard of that's had a +262% share price increase, just in the past fortnight (was $0.029 on Jan 23rd, now $0.105):

It's a good time to be finding gold:

03 Feb 2025: New High-Grade Gold Discovery at Mulgabbie North GoldProject

05 Feb 2025: Update on New Discovery at Mulgabbie North Gold Project

Below is the first page of today's announcement followed by some of the images and diagrams in the announcement:

Source: Update on New Discovery at Mulgabbie North Gold Project  [Today: 05-Feb-2025]

OZM Website: https://ozaurumresources.com/

It doesn't do them any harm that the Australian gold price keeps hitting new all time highs most days lately:

And the US$ gold price (on the right side, above) has joined the party this week also, making new all time highs as well.

Disclosure: I do not hold OZM, as I'd not heard of them before today. My current direct exposures to Australian listed gold producers, explorers and developers are:

Here (SM): Holding RMS, GMD, NST, MEK, EMR, CMM, PNR.

Real Life: Holding RMS, GMD, NST, DEG, EVN, EMR, VAU.

It's a good time to be in gold.