108 per cent up (from 2.5c to 5.2c)
Taking the silver on this week’s Runners podium is Black Dragon Gold and with it, the week’s biggest mystery.
Black Dragon is the operator of the high-grade 1.5-million-ounce Salave gold project in Spain and one of the biggest undeveloped gold projects in Europe. At the beginning of the month, however, it had its early Christmas present severely spoilt after the Tapia de Casariego Town Council voted against the Company’s application for land re-zoning.
The share price thereafter dutifully halved from 3.1c to 1.6c on the disappointment. Normally, that would be the end of the story until a company – like Black Dragon – decides to appeal the decision and possible manages to get it reversed.
The difference this time is the day after the company received the bad news, the share price actually started climbing, slowly at first, but it then started gathering pace. Then on Wednesday the price shot up 80 per cent to 4.5c on massive volumes on absolutely no new news. On Friday, the stock peaked at 5.2c.
Although unqualified gossip at this stage, the rumour mill is, nevertheless, spinning at top speed right now with stories of an imminent European-wide change in legislation to restrict the actions of local councils to block developments if those developments are seen as strategic to the European Union.
As yet, the ASX hasn’t come a’knocking, but unless some definitive announced is released shortly, the mystery will remain unanswered.
Patriot Lithium (ASX:PAT)
84 per cent up (from 3.1c to 5.7c)
Locking up third spot on the Runners list, Patriot Lithium took the plunge to spread its exploration nous from just lithium to also chase copper in Africa.
Referring to its acquisition of a strategic 80 per cent joint venture interest in the highly prospective Kitumba 27715 copper project in Zambia as transformative, the punters were onto the counter early on Monday, pushing the share price up 30 per cent to 4c at one stage. But it was the subsequent news, 24 hours later, of high-grade assays at the project including 4.45 per cent copper and 2.59 grams per tonne (g/t) gold that really got the squark boxes chirping, cranking the share price to a high of 5.7c representing an 84 per cent start-to-peak performance.
Spanning an impressive 255 square kilometres, Kitumba 27715 sits just 2km south of some of Zambia’s earliest copper mines, Sable Antelope or Hippo which were both discovered in the late 19th century. It was from this region that the 1906 copper rush emanated from and where Zambia got its well-earnt reputation for being the copper capital of the world at the time.
The project is also regarded as highly strategic since it wraps around Chinese mining giant Sinomine’s similarly named Kitumba copper deposit, marked up for a US$600 million spend in efforts to produce 50,000 tonnes of copper annually.
The move to spread its exploration focus away from being too lithium-centric, is quite possibly another reason why Patriot’s share price took such a run. The lithium space in the past year has not been a happy hunting ground for investors, so anything that takes attention away from that currently underperforming sector may well be seen as a relief.
Mesoblast (ASX:PAT)
67 per cent up (from $1.84 to $3.09)
With a loud cheer, Mesoblast also had a standout week taking out the final spot on this week’s Runner’s list of best performers.
In a groundbreaking moment for children’s health in the United States, the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) yesterday gave the green light to Mesoblast’s Ryoncil for mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapy, a treatment for reducing the incidence of bone marrow rejection during and after transplant especially in children, sometimes as young as two months.
The share predicably rocketed away on the news, sending it as high as $3.09 or 67 per cent on massive turnover of 57 million shares.
Ryoncil, administered intravenously, demonstrated an impressive 70 per cent overall response rate by day 28 in children with severe grades of the condition massively improving survival outcomes.
With nearly 10,000 allogeneic bone marrow transplants performed in the US every year with high mortality rates and limited treatment options, it’s perhaps not surprising the Mesoblast share price vaulted as strongly as it did, after referring to the treatment as potentially “life saving” for hundreds of kids each year.
The four runners that week have come from a diverse range of sectors, which may be a reflection of a quietening down as we approach Christmas or it could be that in the midst of such a gloomy week for the global bourses, there are still many good stories out there and many which continue to attract the punters.
Signing off ahead of festivities next week, all the staff at Bull N’ Bears would like to wish our readers a very happy, safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year.
As they say in the classics, onwards and upwards.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
