@Bear77I've observed a few times that level only appears for a short fleeting moment. I think that 2.80 mark is pretty good considering we had that rights issue at 3.25 recently. The way I look at it is I'm taking up my rights issue now that I did not take at 3.25 a few months back by trying to get a few below 2.80.

Just need a bit of patience to test the sellers. I'm hoping the seller dumping those shares will live to regret selling below 2.80.

Going back to the joint ventures. Many of them were part of Essential Metals before the takeover (also formerly known as Pioneer Resources).

Red area is the JV

I agree with you @edgescape that the $2.80 level is a decent level for DVP - and I got the rest of that order filled at $2.81 this morning. Of course they spiked down to $2.79 briefly after I moved my buy price up to $2.81, but I'm happy enough with $2.81. When you include the shares I bought a couple of weeks ago at $2.78, my average price paid for the DVP in that real money portfolio is $2.8026, so close enough to $2.80. I expect volatility with this one, so this is only tranche #1 of probably 3 tranches that I'll use to get to my desired weighting within that portfolio, which I expect to take months rather than weeks.

There's a fair bit going on with Bill and DVP, much like his mate Chris over at MIN, but obviously the scale of the two companies is vastly different, but I like the model, mining services with some mine ownership and some project development - and plenty of M&A along the way. It has certainly worked for MinRes over the years, and Bill certainly has plenty of personal experience with mining services, project development, M&A, and mine management. Very bullish on DVP over the mid to longer term.

One other thing, regarding those JVs @edgescape that DVP has (Joint Ventures), I see they (DVP) currently have interests in three gold projects and two nickel projects in that JV list, with gold being an obvious one given Bill Beament's background, but nickel being an interesting one; however I guess with nickel being so smashed at this point and most people expecting even lower nickel prices due to Indonesia producing around 40% of the world's supply of nickel and growing - with lower costs than most other geographies - it might be a good contrarian move to get some exposure now to Australian nickel deposits that may make much more sense economically at higher nickel prices in the future. I can't see those Australian nickel projects being progressed much at current nickel prices, but, like all metals, nickel is going to remain cyclical, so things will change given enough time.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/603621/global-distribution-of-nickel-mine-production-by-select-country/

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264642/nickel-mine-production-by-country/

2.58 - Didn't think we'd hit this level.

Given Michelle Woodhouse bought at higher prices, this seems like good value and added more here.

But we are at 650m so I think any upside is limited unless there is an elephant waiting near Pioneer Dome!

Also Novo Resources have earned their JV interest so there won't be much update from Kangan Gold Project when I checked the ESS announcements. Looks like Novo are not much of a partner.

Have to check the others later.

Yes @edgescape - DVP was my second worst performer across my portfolios today - down -4.33% to close at $2.65 after clipping that $2.58 level on the downside. Mind you, there was plenty of red across the market...

Gold and IT being the worst sectors didn't help me too much. I assume the -6.74% drop in SQ2 (Block Inc., which I don't hold) was the main contributor to IT being smashed so hard today.

In other news, the wheels haven't fallen off, but an FMG train came off the tracks up in the Pilbara for Fortescue (FMG); The incident happened on Saturday about 150 kilometres south of Port Hedland, and is the 2nd such incident in 2023 (this one on Saturday just scraped in to 2023) with Rio Tinto reporting an incident 20 kilometres south of Dampier in June.

"Perth, we have a problem..."

Back in 2018, a runaway BHP iron ore train was deliberately derailed 120 kilometres south of Port Hedland, and some of that looked like this:

Plenty of scrap metal in that lot. And iron ore. Source: Fortescue Metals Group rail operations expected to resume Wednesday after WA derailment - ABC News [02-Jan-2024]

Nowhere to hide today - Small Ords and the Midcap 50 were down -2.05% and -1.83% respectively. And there was no respite at the top end either...

Consumer Staples seemed to be the safest place to be...

There was some flickering green around but hard to find amongst the red. JLG was up +8 cps to $6.16 (+1.32%) as wild weather and flooding continues along Australia's east coast - Flood news headlines - 9News

I also had one of my favourite companies continue to grind higher - GR Engineering (GNG) - which was up +4 cps to $2.35 (+1.73%). I believe there could be a fundy accumulating some GNG - and that would have to be done gradually - as they're fairly illiquid with such high insider ownership. I've been trying to increase my exposure to GNG again on a pullback, but I'm not getting one... yet. Got to be careful what I wish for I s'pose...

Having a look at the gold sector tonight, I was surprised by the market's reaction to the Gold Road's December-2023-Quarter-Production-Update.PDF

Gruyere's 2023 Annual gold production of 321,978 ounces did manage to just scrape in to the bottom end of their 320,000 – 350,000 ounces production guidance, but their explanation for lower gold production in the December quarter was a bit of a worry:

"Production was lower quarter on quarter due to disappointing mining performance arising mainly from unexpected labour availability issues during December. "

Hmmm, OK... And have we sorted those issues out now?? Sounds like something that might reoccur. Gold Road only own half of Gruyere, so they only get half of those ounces, with the other half going to their JV Partners, the South African HQ'd Gold Fields Limited, who own the other 50% of Gruyere and are the operators of the mine. Because they are NOT the operators, Gold Road (GOR) have very limited input or control in terms of operational issues such as labour availability.

I do hold some GOR shares in my SMSF and the upside of today's update (which did not include any AISC/cost details by the way), was:

• Gold Road’s December quarter gold sales totalled 37,037 ounces at an average sales price of A$3,040 per ounce. [That's a lot of Cheddar!]
• Gold doré and bullion on hand on 31 December 2023 was approximately 1,989 ounces.
• Gold Road continues to be unhedged and 100% exposed to the spot gold price.
• Cash and equivalents (cash, doré and bullion on hand at 31 December 2023) decreased to approximately $149.8 million (September quarter: $209.3 million) with no debt drawn, following investments (placements in De Grey Mining of $62.7m and Yandal Resources of $0.7m) and a $10.9m dividend payment - so without those investments and dividend payment, they'd have had another $74.3 million which would have given them a cash and equivalents balance of $212.5m at the end of December, just over $3m more than they had at the end of September. So it checks out. They're still in good shape.
• At 31 December 2023, Gold Road held listed investments with a market value of approximately $465 million (based on 29 December closing prices). That's in addition to the $149.8m of cash and equivalents.
• And No Debt!

I thought that the -8.95% selldown of GOR (from $1.955 yesterday to close at $1.78 today, that -8.95% SP fall made them my worst performer today) was a little overdone, but the market wasn't in the mood to hear anything even vaguely negative today. However, that has to be viewed in the context of their +43% rise from $1.40 in March to just over $2/share in December. They've performed well lately. Anyway, getting off track as usual - no pun intended - much!

Thursday 4th Jan 2024: Gold still being beaten up, and Johns Lyng Group (JLG) still rising against the tide, or with the flooding perhaps.

Commsec reckon JLG are still in a near-term downtrend - see the bit there that I've highlighted in orange (above) - WTF?? Sure, if you look at the past 3 or 4 months they've been making lower highs, but over the past 6 months they've also been making higher lows, and I'm prepared to stick my neck out here and say that the breakout is unlikely to be to the downside from here! They're going higher, IMO. They've got natural disaster tailwinds, and the east coast is their core area of operation, so I'm reasonably confident that many if not most of the major insurers have got JLG's various divisions on speed-dial, and that JLG are getting plenty of calls and are going to be PLENTY BUSY from here. The market seems to be catching on, finally, but Commsec's auto-technical-analysis-software isn't so bright it seems. Might need some tweaking - or some AI ? Anyway, I tend to ignore technicals for the most part, but occasionally I read that rubbish that Commsec like to add below their Summary price charts - and it often does not make a lot of sense.

The most shorted ASX stocks haven't changed much recently - still plenty of lithium, with a couple of uranium names (DYL, PEN) now as well, plus Syrah (graphite) and Genesis (gold) are still there. PLS is over 20% shorted now - and the shorts seem to be increasing further every month - see the upper blue line below - it's been around the same level since late November, but it's not falling...

Source: https://www.shortman.com.au/ Don't forget the .au at the end because without that ".au" you'll get a gallery of photos of yanks with short hair. Actually, I think it's the same guy, with various hair cuts, mostly short.

The shorters have been "on the money" with PLS for most of the past 6 months - with the PLS share price dropping steadily from around $5.40 in August to as low as $3.23 on December 5th and an intraday low of $3.10 on December 6th, but the PLS SP has been mostly rising since then (i.e. for the past 4 weeks) so perhaps there's a short squeeze coming... I still haven't bought any PLS, but I certainly wouldn't be shorting them. Of all the ASX-listed lithium producers, in terms of pure-lithium plays, Pilbara looks to be best placed to ride out lower prices and use this period of time to create a stronger company for the future when lithium prices will surely rise - sooner or later. No net debt and around $3 Billion of net cash at June 30th (see here: Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) Seems To Use Debt Rather Sparingly - Simply Wall St News).

So I wouldn't be shorting PLS myself, however, with that said, I haven't bought any PLS yet, so I'm not going long on them either - yet. They remain a company of interest - so on a watchlist. My lithium exposure remains via MinRes (MIN) which is mostly a mining services and iron ore play currently, with fingers in more pies than I can count with both my socks off.

And since this thread is supposed to be about DVP - I should probably include this:

Certainly not a bullish chart, any which way you look at it. But it has Bill Beament running it, and that is a factor that is quite hard to quantify. I struggle to value DVP with a strong degree of confidence or certainty, but I know I want exposure to the company, and I am confident that the company will be worth a lot more in the future than it is trading for currently.

Disclosure: I hold DVP shares both here and IRL, as well as MIN, GMD and JLG (JLG in one real money portfolio, but not here on SM), but not PLS (yet).