Money Talks is *’s regular drill down into the sectors...

Money Talks is *’s regular drill down into the sectors and companies that investors have their eye on right now.

Today, we hear from Trent Primmer, head of trading at Barclay Pearce.

What’s hot right now?

Primmer reports it’s been a busy year for Barclay Pearce with such a big increase in the amount of capital raised in 2020. But there’s no question that gold is the sector clearly outperforming the rest.

“It’s probably the easiest pitch you could bring to market,” he told *.

In 2020, the average ASX gold stock is up 107 per cent. A handful have gained over 1,000 per cent.

Experts believe it is getting much harder to find bargain gold opportunities given stock valuations have risen just as massively as the price of the precious metal.

But there are still opportunities out there, Primmer says.

“People want businesses that are coming off a low base, that do have that sort of upside that could come through in the share price if they hit a high-grade gold deposit from their exploration programs,” he said.

“I think it’s a pretty easy pitch at the moment, everyone wants a piece of gold.

“With [interest] rates staying low for a long period of time, you could argue there’s more downside in the broader market than upside.

“We’re just getting propped up by fiscal stimulus, once that dries up its hard to see the market continuing to track higher. So I think there’s a lot of room to go [for gold].”

Top picks

KINGWEST RESOURCES (ASX:KWR)

Market Cap: ~$17m

Kingwest’s turf is in the Eastern Goldfields of WA. The company’s flagship Menzies project once hosted five underground gold mines which produced between 16 grams per tonne (g/t) and 32g/t gold over their operating lives for a total of 650,000oz at 22.5g/t.

No activity occurred at the project for over 20 years until Kingwest came along.

Early exploration results, including one ~25g/t gold hit earlier this year, has shown there could be even more gold to be found at Menzies.

Another of the company’s projects with plenty of upside is Goongarrie, 40km away.

“We’ve had a couple of chats with these guys and they’re confident they’re going to be continuing to return some pretty punchy sort of returns for clients and shareholders,” Primmer said.

“It will be interesting to see how they go over the next several months but around these levels they are a cheap buy for us so we’re comfortable accumulating at these levels.”