12-Aug-2022: In today's Friday email from the ASX with their free broker reports, there was only one, on Ausgold (AUC) by Argonaut - see here: auc-argonaut-update-120822.pdf

It is dated Thursday 11th August, 2022 (i.e. yesterday) although the date in the file name is today (the date it was distributed). So it's very current. Argonaut have a "SPEC BUY" call and an 11 cents/share valuation for AUC.

AUC closed at $0.054 today - i.e. 5.4c/share, up +8% on their 5c/share close yesterday - which is the "current price" mentioned in Argonaut's report. The next best performer today in the gold sector was Resolute (RSG), which rose +1c (or +3.51%) to close at 29.5c/share, so I daresay this report from Argonaut had a fair bit to do with AUC being up +8% today.

Argonaut's Summary (at the bottom of page 7) says, "Katanning represents a long-lived, profitable gold project. There is room to improve upon the existing plan. We maintain our Spec Buy recommendation. "

Argonaut do disclose on page 8 that they acted as Lead Manager to the Placement to raise $16M for Ausgold in March 2022 and will receive fees commensurate with this service. I have mentioned before that these brokers who are bullish on these speculative pre-revenue companies have often placed clients into them (meaning they have allocated shares in the companies they are reviewing to their own clients, or advised their clients to purchase shares in these companies) during previous placements or during the IPO, and so their views on these companies' prospects should always be viewed in that light. I'm not saying they are wrong, or being dishonest. I am simply pointing out that they have reason to want the company to do well, so it would be unusual for them to be publishing anything too negative about these companies, and understandable for them to be highlighting the positives. Just something to keep in mind. I find these reports useful, but I would never rely solely on one of them, they would always just be a single source of information and I would want more than that before choosing to invest in a company like this.

Disclosure: I do not hold Ausgold shares. Too early stage for me. In other words, too speculative, with too much chance of permanent capital loss.