gold story was good back in early 2020 when average AISC was around $1200aud and the gold price was $2600 & trending up higher around the the Covid/Lockdown/QE mania.This lead nearly all to believe the price of gold was going to trend higher. Hell, even the OG Warren Buffet's BRK bought a gold miner.
But it wasn't just the gold price, the years leading up to 2020, there were many good successful stories of small caps that made discoveries and developed mines + takeovers. A few list of events below
- NST's meteoric rise
- GOR's Gruyere Discovery to Mine
- CMM's successful progression to Mine
- BCN's discovery to Mine
- Echo Resource Takeover
- Egan St Takeover
- Alt Resource Takeover
- SPX takeover
- CDV takeover
All these events preceded the spike in the Gold price around May/June 2020. This created strong tail winds for gold small caps with the narrative of replicated the aforementioned success in a high gold price environment. However, as the gold price started to pull back, inflation started to rear it's ugly head.
Nearly all miners experienced AISC blowouts. The once average aisc of $1200aud quickly blew out to $1700-$1800aud and rising. From seeing many successful stories, some real bad headwinds developed from events such as
- DCN failure
- WMC failure
- SBM failure
- FFX Failure
- MDI failed mine restart
- CAI's cost blowouts
- Miners Aisc cost blowouts
- Shareprice collapse of nearly all miners
The above are just some of many. & the problems still exist. Billions of shareholders value have been lost from from the aforementioned. It's a large reason why small caps are in a full blown bear market. Just too many have been burnt.
We have yet to have a very good gold story for nearly 3 years now. There have been a few takeovers but nothing that would set the sector on fire.
I think there will be a few more takeovers but i won't name the companies to avoid cross promoting. but after they are taken out, there would just about be no more prospective gold explorers left. Takeover targets would be the only gold small caps i'd touch and even that is a big risk. So if someone is lucky to good enough to pick them then they maybe might do well.
IMO, NXM is neither a takeover target or the next good developer/mine story.
