“For more than two thousand years gold’s natural qualities made it man’s universal medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have gone the way of all paper.”— Hans F. Sennholz
Australia’s gold industry remains its third largest export earner more than 150 years after gold’s discovery in 1851. The industry is an important source of economic activity and jobs in many regions, with gold mining occurring in all states and the Northern Territory. While production is expected to grow in coming years, the Australian gold industry also confronts challenges in a highly competitive global marketplace. (Source – Mineral Council of Australia)
After four years of declining investment in the industry, the global mining industry marked a 14 percent increase in non-ferrous (non-iron) exploration to nearly $US8 billion ($10.3 billion) last year out of which only Gold exploration accounted for 73% increase. (Source – S&P)
They spent $US4.1 billion globally — a jump of 22 percent over 2016 – to account for more than half the global exploration budget. The interesting part of this exploration is that it was the mainly the small companies which were mainly injecting cash into exploration, while the majors continued to allocate only a small part of their revenue on finding more minerals.(S&P).
Total Australian exploration expenditure rose 4.4 percent to $20.9 million in the December quarter. The largest increase came from gold exploration, which rose 8.3 percent to $16 million.
The table below shows that some of the small-cap Gold stocks which increased more than 200% in last year:
Company ASX Price March 2017 Price March 2018 % Change Market Cap AUD
| Company | ASX | Price March 2017 | Price March 2018 | % Change | Market Cap AUD |
| Anglo Australian Resources | AAR | 0.022 | 0.278 | 255% | 22556976 |
| Apollo Consolidated | AOP | 0.08 | 0.255 | 219% | 39061340 |
| BBX Minerals | BBX | 0.065 | 0.205 | 215% | 79092456 |
| Force Commodities | 4CE | 0.031 | 0.095 | 206% | 39892008 |
| Activex | AIV | 0.09 | 0.16 | 78% | 28356544 |
| Alliance Resources | AGS | 0.087 | 0.12 | 38% | 13036740 |
| Aurelia Metals | AMI | 0.26 | 0.36 | 38% | 312295968 |
In coming weeks, we shall be publishing reports highlighting Gold companies, which are still a potential buy as this is an important space to watch out for as the Gold prices are reviving.
Veye Pty Ltd(ABN 58 623 120 865), holds (AFSL No. 523157 ). All information provided by Veye Pty Ltd through its website, reports, and newsletters is general financial product advice only and should not be considered a personal recommendation to buy or sell any asset or security. Before acting on the advice, you should consider whether it’s appropriate to you, in light of your objectives, financial situation, or needs. You should look at the Product Disclosure Statement or other offer document associated with the security or product before making a decision on acquiring the security or product. You can refer to our Terms & Conditions and Financial Services Guide for more information. Any recommendation contained herein may not be suitable for all investors as it does not take into account your personal financial needs or investment objectives. Although Veye takes the utmost care to ensure accuracy of the content and that the information is gathered and processed from reliable resources, we strongly recommend that you seek professional advice from your financial advisor or stockbroker before making any investment decision based on any of our recommendations. All the information we share represents our views on the date of publishing as stocks are subject to real time changes and therefore may change without notice. Please remember that investments can go up and down and past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns. We request our readers not to interpret our reports as direct recommendations. To the extent permitted by law, Veye Pty Ltd excludes all liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of this website and any information published (including any indirect or consequential loss, any data loss, or data corruption) (as mentioned on the website www.veye.com.au), and confirms that the employees and/or associates of Veye Pty Ltd do not hold positions in any of the financial products covered on the website on the date of publishing this report. Veye Pty Ltd hereby limits its liability, to the extent permitted by law to the resupply of services.