Decent risk that the gold trade could be over as its on the nose to break through support. Liquidation in commodities has been acute. Obvs inflation/rates a driving risk factor but potentially another one is Gulf states and other "trade surplus" countries that are losing revenues are liquidating gold. This is something to watch for as if the central bank buying trend is over for some time, I think that could be it for gold.
As an update. the two black line are ones I have used regularly before and the purple is one I have seen many start using. Less touch points that the other. Could be a little relief rally given the intensity of the downside move but be mindful this is the last potential support until the lower US$4000oz range. Prior support likely becomes resistance in the event of a relief rally. With that, gold (and commodities ex-energy) feels like a capital preservation focus than a return generating focus. (Edit for typos).
To say gold didn't crash, liquidity did is a bit silly as these things are driven by flows (i.e. liquidity). The price went down as there are more sellers than buyers. One of those sellers was reported to be Turkiye. Reporting in gold is lagging so risk is if others in the region that are impacted by a blow out in their trade balances are pushed to do the same for liquidity.
The CB/SWF bid has been one of the few sustainable fundamental factors in gold. It is important and is a factor associated with liquidity. Rates/inflation are the next key risk factor that can influence gold atm.
Gold made its lowest close this month. Bounce off the 200dma met resistance at the 100dma. Retest of the 200dma is likely now. How it behaves at that level will give a better indication of if a low is being made or if we are halfway through the "party". Updated chart for posterity.
Despite the initial puke out on Trump saying they're doing kick-ons in Iran, gold bounced back to reclaim the 100dma which is positive but remains stuck at resistance from prior support lines. I had done some minor tactical adding in names (CRS and LNQ) later in the week, just to wrongly satisfy an urge to "chase".
Obs the main risk is more of the same (ongoing war and energy disruption) could force more liquidations as reports in the last few weeks suggest countries impacted from the energy shock sell for liquidity support. Plus elevated inflation/rates is a headwind.
6th March 2026: The Aussie gold sector has been sold off over the past couple of days with double digit percentage drops with many names, however the gold price is still above A$7,000/oz (& US$5,000/oz):
That's at the start of today (6th March) in the US. Have a look at the S&P March 2026 indices rebalance announced today:
Australia's largest gold producer, NST, moving up into the ASX20, 3 more goldies (GGP, RRL & WGX) now in the ASX100 (as shown above) and plenty of goldies moving up into the ASX300 too, as shown below:
So I'll be able to add TCG and MEK to my income stream account come Monday March 23rd (instead of holding them in my SPF - speccy portfolio - as I am now). I probably won't, because on that day I'll be driving the big 6-berth Maui Motorhome back from WA to Adelaide, but I will likely add them when I get back to Adelaide later that week.
Source: S&P-DJI-Announces-March-2026-Quarterly-Rebalance.pdf [06-Mar-2026]
I'm still all cash in my SMSF while I wait for CBUS to set up the income stream account and transfer the SMSF money over to that Income Stream Account, so days like today when companies I definitely want to buy back into are falling, like Catalyst (CYL) down -11.34% and Northern Star (NST) down -8.11% and Genesis (GMD) down -7.17% and Blackcat (BC8) down -6.98 and Evolution (EVN) down -5.98% and Capricorn (CMM) down -5.97% and Ramelius (RMS) down 4.94%... is not too bad for me at this point.
Of those companies on that watchlist, I currently only hold MEK and TCG and both of those are in my speccy portfolio (SPF). The other 10 companies that I hold in my SPF are not in the ASX300 so I will not be able to hold any of them in my Income Stream Account (CBUS fund rules).
PME are looking like they're developing some wings and trying to fly out of that technical purgatory... Still with plenty of upside potential if the SaaSpocalypse fears subside further - despite still being on a lofty PE (I know @mikebrisy - the PE is irrelevant for a company with a growth runway as long as PME's is).
But this decline in the price of the ASX300 gold producers is interesting, as it's not currently correlated to the gold price. I'll take it. As long as it doesn't continue much beyond when I buy back into these companies (most of them anyway) in my new income stream account when I am able to.
Just a quick note about my "Mad March": I'm packing for the trip over the weekend and then leaving early Monday and won't be back from the family road trip to WA until late March, so while I'll try to check in here when I can, I'm going to be mostly AWOL from SM for the majority of this month - from tonight. So I won't be posting much, if at all, and I won't be able to "like" all of the posts and straws that I usually would, because I won't be able to read them much of the time, due to either Optus-coverage issues or time constraints.
So I will be back, but I'll be gone for a bit first.
[The diesel prices across the Nullarbor and back will be interesting]
Friday 6th Feb 2026: 8pm (Adelaide time):
90 minutes ago, that looked like this (slightly different daily moves):
The uptrend still looks intact to me.
OK, here's what the main broad general ASX indices have done over the past 12 months with today's falls listed top right (below):
The Small Ords had risen higher than the All Ords, so has fallen further in the "correction" or whatever you want to call the collective moves over the past six trading days, however the Small Ords is still up +10.6% over 12 months vs only +2% for the larger cap All Ords Index.
Now, let's add in gold and gold miners.
Again, the rises have been higher, so the falls have been greater, but they're still well up - in fact those are excellent returns, especially over the past 6 months.
Now, let's look at eight of the largest Australian gold producers:
We can see from that (above) that the higher they rose, the more they have fallen, but they're all still up - a lot! The exceptions are NST, EVN and RRL who have fallen less than the others from their recent high points in late January.
NST have probably fallen less because they are the biggest company of that group and they produce the most gold (so are lower risk) and also because they (NST) have risen by the least amount; EVN maybe because they're the second largest and also have a lot of copper production, and RRL because... I don't know; I don't hold Regis (RRL) and I have stopped following them closely since I sold out (back in 2024 I think it was), but I guess they just have more support at this point in time and people are prepared to buy the dips more than with most of those other companies.
Now let's look at some smaller emerging gold producers and gold project developers. I'll keep the best (WGX, +166%) and worst (NST, +47%, "least best" perhaps rather than worst) performers from that graph above, for some perspective, delete the rest, and add 4 juniors (MEK, HRZ, MM8 & NMG):
I now hold NMG again but I only bought back in this past week (on Thursday), but how's that for a 12m return: +416.67% !! Down from +520% in January, but still up +416% today. I did hold them last year but sold out mid-year; I clearly should have held onto them!
There's plenty at the smaller company end of the Aussie gold sector that have moved by even more, such as Forrestania Resources (FRS) whose share price has risen by an outstanding +5,456% - yes, that's over five thousand percent in 12 months, and they're an earlier stage emerging project developer; If I add FRS to any of these graphs, everything else just flatlines to the bottom due to the scaling required to allow for FRS' +5,456% return over the past 12 months, which is why FRS is not included here - they're in a class of their own - well, they're not too lonely; they have some friends at the speccy end, but I'm looking here at more advanced and derisked project developers, some of which are already producing gold.
MEK is producing from their own recently re-commissioned mill, so are HRZ and NMG via either ore sales or toll treatment of their ore at other companies' gold mills, and MM8 own a mill but it needs to be converted from nickel to gold and copper, and that mill conversion and refurbishment process is progressing via GNG - my largest holding today - I bought another 10,000 GNG shares this arvo.
I'll now add in my own two largest gold producer holdings at this point in time, BC8 and CYL, who are also both "emerging producers", both already producing gold but still regarded as gold juniors, however both have seriously expanding gold production profiles over the next few years if they do what they say they're going to do.
BC8's and CYL's 12 month % rises on the right side there cover up some other companies' numbers, so that's why I've added them in last - the covered up percentages can be read on the previous screenshot above.
BC8 is up +87.41% and CYL is up +79.85% over the past 12 months, despite their recent falls. BC8 has fallen less than CYL over the past 6 trading days; there seems to be some buying support there for BC8, similar to NST, EVN and RRL in a previous screenshot in this post. CYL look to me like the better opportunity to be topping up at these reduced prices from their recent high because they've dropped further - I added them to my Strawman portfolio this week. I already held BC8 here. BC8 and CYL are two of my top three largest positions in my SMSF (along with ARB, who are not a gold company).
These last two graphs have adjusted scaling to accommodate NMG's (New Murchison Gold's) +416.67% share price rise over the past 12 months.
Except for NST, ALL of them have beaten the 51% rise of GOLD (the physical GOLD ETF that tracks the gold price) and they've all thrashed the All Ords, the Small Ords and the ASX100, the ASX200 and the ASX300.
And that's all after last Friday's falls (Jan 30th) as well as the falls during this past week. These prices and graphs above are all current as at 8pm on Friday 6th Feb 2026.
So, yeah, there's a sea of red out there, but when you zoom out, it ain't that bad in the gold sector. I reckon it's still the place to be in terms of having some decent exposure in your investment portfolio in these turbulent times.
Disclosure: Of those companies in these graphs, I currently hold NST, EVN, GMD, CMM, RMS, MEK, HRZ, NMG, BC8 and CYL. I also hold others that are not in these graphs such as ALK, VAU, GG8, TCG, GHM, GBR, AZY, KAL and as of yesterday (Thurs 5th Feb) BTR as well.
I have the uptrend in tact with my own chart squiggles. Holding the breakout point of late Dec. For now I expect to see it range between 4700-5100/oz with volatility tapering off.
Saturday 7th Feb 2026, mid-afternoon: FWIW, the gold price ended up in positive territory at the end of Friday in the USA (after starting off in the red):
That was snapped 4 minutes ago, and shows the closing prices in the US for the week on the right plus the Australian Dollar equivalent on the left.
A$7,077 per ounce on Feb 7th. I like that.
The charts only go up until Wednesday or Thursday, but the prices at the top are for the end of Friday in the USA, and the performance tables below the charts are based on the prices at the top.
So gold is back in the green over 1 day, 30 days, and all timeframes beyond that as shown in the tables above.
And the US had a good Friday (see below), in fact it was just Australia and Hong Kong that had a bad Friday it seems:
Source: Commsec, 2 minutes ago.
Based on the NASDAQ, the Dow, and the S&P 500 all being well up on Friday, our SPI Futures is showing +102 indicating that, all other things being equal, in other words if nothing terrible happens over the weekend, the ASX should open up in positive territory on Monday.
Source: MarcusToday.com.au (EOD newsletter)
Yeah, Monday (today) was an "up day" as expected, based on the US positivity on Friday (their Friday, being our Friday night); Ain't it interesting that despite the volatility, including the big ASX sell-off on our Friday (6th Feb), the ASX200 is now (on the far right of that chart above) basically where it was 5 days ago (far left of that chart, @ the open on Tuesday 3rd), probably a bee's whisker higher now. Not much in it.
Again, volatility is not risk. Volatility can be opportunity.
No red on my screen today, and guess which sector outperformed again...
Yeah, the gold price uptrend is still intact.
With another week going buy, gold looking more constructive with an ascending triangle forming. I even ran this pic through AI and it said the probabilities lie towards bullish.
Tuesday 3rd February 2026, 7:50pm: What crash?
Sure, it was a big two day drawdown, but the gold price over all timeframes shown there in both currencies in the tables below the charts is back to positive already - all green - and it's only Tuesday!
If they had a one week timeframe, it would be in the red, but over the past 30 days we're actually still in front, as shown above, thanks to today's gold price rise.
Looks like I missed my window to buy shares in a few more junior goldies. Yesterday was the day to buy, not today. It's always easy in hindsight.
Edit: Additional: I should mention the graphs above only go up to yesterday (Monday) but the gold prices at the top were current when I posted this and the tables below that show different time frame performances do include today's (Tuesday's) gold price rise (which is shown at the top). There are small differences between the "Today" line in the tables and the gold price movements at the top of the screenshot because they update at different times, so the gold price was moving when I took the snap, hence the variance, but regardless, the rise today clawed back yesterday's fall and started eating into Friday's fall as well. I think we'll end this week with an overall weekly gold price rise.
Yes @Arizona Bottom Picking can be a smelly and unpleasant exercise, and Monday was certainly some sort of bottom considering yesterday's and today's gold price rises.
When I just checked, goldprice.org is saying we're now back to here:
AU$ Gold back over $7,000/ounce and US$ gold back over $5,000/ounce. How quickly we bounce back!
Yeah @Arizona - if you had spent the past week relaxing on a desert island with no internet or phone reception, you'd have missed a huge amount of gold price volatility, but not a huge net price movement over the week. In fact, bugger-all movement in the gold price over 7 days! One week ago it was only just above where it is right now.
Those graphs only go up until Monday (2nd), so I've drawn an extra red line on each graph (A$/US$ graphs) to bring the price up to where it is right now (to include the price rises from yesterday and today), then showed that current gold price relative to where it was a week ago using the flat horizontal light blue lines. Bee's whisker, eh!
P.S. The reason the daily percentage rise numbers have changed so much between this screenshot from goldprice.org (above, done 5 minutes ago) and the one I did 4 hours ago (the post of mine above this post in this thread) is that the last one was showing Tuesday (3rd Feb) total gains in percentages and this one is showing Wednesday's gains so far in percentages ("so far" because in the US their trading day is not over yet), so two different days. Both screenshots were current at the time I posted them (the gold price was correct in both currencies at that particular point in time) however for the purposes of daily gains in percentage terms the site (goldprice.org) bases the cut off point on the US market rather than ours, and in the US their Wednesday trading began between this post and my last one (which was 4 hours ago), so this one shows percentages for Wednesday so far, and my last one (that just showed the gold price and the daily moves with no graphs or tables) was for Tuesday (3rd Feb) but with the current gold price at that point in time.
Yes @BkrDzn I came around to a similar POV earlier today and cancelled my MEK top-order (my real money one, I did top up MEK here on SM today after selling my ALK here but not IRL), left my real money FRS and MM8 orders in the market at lower levels (lower than Monday's close in each case, so those two may never go through, but that's OK), but raised the prices on my other two speccy goldie buy trades early this arvo and as a result I acquired 20,000 BTR @ 53 cps (3 cents above their CR price from the raise they're going through currently) and 142,800 shares (just shy of $10K worth) of NMG @ 7 cents. BTR closed at 55 cps and NMG closed at 7.1 cps, so my SPF now looks like this:
Commsec also add in the brokerage as part of their automatic calculation of my average buy price, so they list my buy price for BTR as 53.2 cps instead of 53 cps (because of the $19.95 brokerage) - it didn't make any difference to the NMG order because the share price was much lower (7 cents vs 53 cents) so the quantity bought was much higher so the $19.95 brokerage fee divided by the number of shares purchased (142,800) was seven tenths of bugger all.
So I'm still $20 underwater on GHM (brokerage only) based on today's close, but that Horse hasn't hit its stride yet IMO - check out their announcements and presentations for all of the equine (horse) references and puns - there are a LOT of them!
And I'm still 11.3% down on KAL who are still out there trying to drum up some support - Kalgoorlie Gold Mining Targets Multi-million Ounce Discovery in a Proven Gold Corridor [Jan 28, 2026]
YouTube plain text link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Aakw60K-kQ
Show Notes and Timestamps:
Kalgoorlie Gold Mining (ASX:KAL) is advancing a focused exploration strategy aimed at uncovering a multi-million-ounce gold resource within one of Western Australia’s most established gold corridors.
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:24 The gold price rally and its impact on KalGold’s valuation
- 01:06 Kalgoorlie Gold's valuation proposition
- 01:53 KalGold’s strategic plan
- 02:49 Pathway to market and monetization opportunities
- 03:56 Exploration programs and assay timelines
- 05:10 Investor considerations and future programs
--- end of notes and links ---
Maybe hit them up for a research and report gig @BkrDzn - their MD, Matt Painter clearly likes to get the word out there but his strategy in terms of share price appreciation is not working too well so far. I reckon they just need to find higher grade gold, and more of it. And I'm betting that they'll find plenty more; I just don't know if it's going to be high grade or low grade, but if there's enough of it, even low grade might be good enough considering their location.
I reckon they belong in my SPF anyway despite them being my only underperformer so far - they have a cornerstone investor - Ed Eshuys, through his investment company Alianda Oaks (8.14% since September 24th), who has been credited with the Plutonic, Bronzewing and Jundee gold discoveries - who I respect and believe is worth following - and Ed's investing strategy now (outlined here) is to back companies who own a decent amount of land that is highly prospective for gold and who have capable management teams who are serious about discoveries and are proving that by their actions, i.e. they are actively drilling and drilling properly (going deep enough for instance and being smart about their intervals between holes). That's according to the man himself in this MoM podcast chat. Plain text link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGfF46yezTE
So, the short version of that is probably: It could take time, but I reckon they're worth a punt.
Which is, after all, what this speccy portfolio is all about, punting. Speculating rather than investing. My investing is done through my larger IPF (income portfolio) and my CBUS SMSF (which only holds ASX300 companies and is heavily weighted to gold producers). This SPF is with money I can afford to lose and gives me a little more excitement than I get from my other portfolios. So far, I've done well out of it, probably because it's mostly full of junior goldies (10 of the 12) at a time when the gold price is on a massive run.
I'd like to add MM8 and FRS, but at lower levels or else when FRS is more advanced and de-risked.
I reckon MM8 have a few positive catalysts coming, mostly relating to progress on GNG (who I hold) converting MM8's Cosmic Boy nickel plant into a gold mill capable of handling Medallion's (MM8's) gold/copper ore (Google says MM8's current plan is to use ore with 0.6% copper and 3.5 g/t gold), but all of these companies have potentially positive catalysts coming, and it's really a matter of trying to the pick the ones with the most likely near-term upside potential, unless you're playing with patient money that can sit there for a few years - such as John Forwood's Lowell Resources Funds - see here for more on that (+125% return for CY2025) - I've been tempted to put some cash into one of his funds, particularly because his investment universe is global and mine is just the ASX (my self-imposed boundary), and also because of his stellar returns and sensible and patient strategies.
But as John said in that MoM poddy, "You can't hold everything".
Thursday 5th Feb: I bought another 23,000 MEK @ 22.5 cps today in my SPF, so have increased that position from 77,000 shares back up to 100,000 shares. MEK closed half a cent lower than my top up price, at 22 cps, but that was a coin flip in terms of where they landed with the CSPA @ 4:10pm. There are now 9 buyers for 3,361,972 MEK shares on the buy side @ 22 cents after the close and only a single offer for 200,000 MEK @ 22.5 cps on the sell side (top of each column, see below). So the spread suggests that if we don't get a gold price drop overnight, MEK should go higher tomorrow.
Of course that will all look different tomorrow, and anything can happen, but the numbers look good to me right now. Regardless, I like this 22 cents to 23 cents area for buying more MEK; I paid a little more than that to double my position here on SM yesterday. Meeka Metals haven't really put a foot wrong with the ramp up of their Murchison Mill (formerly known as the Andy Well mill, formerly owned by Doray Minerals, then Silver Lake Resources) a little northeast of Meekatharra, and they're actively exploring and finding more gold around that mill within their tenements, so they are making money with what they already have, and finding more.
Meeka is still small scale but they're one of the best emerging gold producers I can find in Australia, because of where they are, the ground they own, their execution so far, and how they are going about everything. Like I said, they haven't put a foot wrong so far...
Which probably means... Yeah, nah, she'll be apples.