The market was back this week as the ASX pushed on towards all-time highs, despite a continued backdrop of tariff trade wars and economic tensions.
United States markets also neared all-time highs, with the S&P500 just 3 per cent off its peak and technology and communications stocks seeing the week’s biggest gains.
The market this week witnessed an interesting mix of factors propelling companies up the leaderboard and onto the Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runners of the Week list. One rare earths junior unveiled a mammoth increase to its mineral resource and a junior goldie got a boost from a boardroom revolt by a major shareholder. In addition, a new management team is readying to convert a foreign mineral resource to JORC-compliant status and a tech company kicked some funds into its kitty to drive growth in its software-as-a-service revenue.
ECLIPSE METALS (ASX: EPM)
up 360% (0.5c – 2.3c)
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is rare earths explorer Eclipse Metals, which blasted up the charts on Tuesday after unveiling a beefed-up mineral resource estimate for its Gronnedal rare earths deposit in Greenland.
The resource now clocks in at a whopping 89 million tonnes at 6363 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO), packing 567,600 tonnes TREO. That’s a 70-fold leap forward with grades north of 0.63 per cent TREO, putting Gronnedal among the world’s elite rare earth deposits, according to its management.
The Gronnedal deposit lies within Eclipse’s broader Ivigtût project, targeting the high-value critical minerals of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. Some samples have topped 2 per cent (20,000ppm) TREO.
Market punters gobbled up the upgrade, with the company’s share price soaring 360 per cent from a close of 0.5 cents last week to a high of 2.3c on Wednesday, on more than $4 million worth of paper changing hands.
The updated resource area is restricted to a relatively small portion of rare earths-endowed carbonatite. A 2023 exploration program included trenching and shallow drilling, but was constrained to within 12m of surface.
The company last year laid its hands on 23 drill core samples from six diamond holes hammered into the site in 1950. The holes were drilled to a maximum depth of about 200m by cryolite miner Kryolitselskabet Oresund to test for a potential iron ore deposit.
Laboratory analysis from the core samples returned the impressive numbers, resulting in a gargantuan leap in the mineral resource.
Sitting in geopolitically stable Greenland with deep-water access, Gronnedal sits on a sliver of a massive carbonatite complex, with mineralisation open in all directions expected to stretch well past 500m deep.
Eclipse is gearing up to drill deeper and wider, chasing what could be a globally critical supply of rare earths. That could be particularly significant given the US is chasing new rare earth supplies and Trump’s latest musings about snapping up Greenland for its critical mineral deposits.
With clean energy demand surging and only six historic drill holes underpinning the resource, Eclipse’s Gronnedal could be the kind of blockbuster that sends shareholders to the moon.
BRYAH RESOURCES (ASX: BYH)
up 240% (0.5c – 1.7c)
Gold explorer Bryah Resources had a tremendous week to come in second on the ASX Runners list. The company stormed the bourse with a cheeky 240 per cent surge in its share price, thanks to a shareholder mutiny to send the boardroom brass walking and bring in new directors to get working on its shiny new Canadian gold project.
The drama kicked off with a section 249D notice from heavyweight shareholder Yu Yonglu, who holds an 11.8 per cent stake or 102 million shares in the company. Yu launched a strike to oust directors Leslie Ingraham and Ian Stuart on Monday, proposing seasoned minerals veterans Nicholas Katris and Bishoy Habib steer the ship.
Katris and Habib are the golden boys behind Trigg Minerals, an ASX antimony darling whose shares ran from 0.5c to 10.25c in under a year.
Surprisingly, Bryah’s share price leapt a massive 200 per cent at the start of the week, on an impressive 72.8M shares traded, to close at 1.5c by Tuesday afternoon. A massive 85.3M shares were traded on Wednesday, pushing the share price to a peak for the week of 1.7c and a tremendous 240 per cent gain over two days.
Fuel was added to the fire in the form of Bryah’s acquisition last month of the Golden Pike project in New Brunswick, Canada, which has a foreign resource of 214,800 tonnes at an impressive 9.6 grams per tonne (g/t) for 66,300 ounces gold. The project features some stonking historic bonanza intercepts, such as 13 metres at 43.07g/t and 10m grading a little over an ounce per tonne gold.
The company says plenty of upside remains at the project with untested boulders assaying up to 244g/t gold. Golden Pike now looks like a priority target for a first drilling campaign.
As gold prices continue to push all-time highs, Golden Pike looks ready for the shovel in a mining-friendly region with top-notch infrastructure, potentially positioning Bryah for a company-making discovery.
Yu’s boardroom coup appears to have been popular, with shareholders sipping champagne on the thought the two Trigg poster boys might soon be in their corner.
BASTION MINERALS (ASX: BMO)
Up 167% (0.15c to 0.4c)
Bastion Minerals burst from the blocks as a late runner this morning to secure third place in this week’s list.
After closing at 0.15c on Thursday, the company’s shares opened at 0.2c and sprinted to 0.4c on massive volumes, exceeding 200M shares traded by noon.
Bastion has seen its daily share volumes swing wildly during the year, ranging from one share up to 55.7M shares traded in a day. Friday’s volumes appear to surpass any previous frenzied trading levels in the stock.
The company recently appointed a new leadership team to review all its existing projects. It also plans to acquire some early-stage Australian gold projects.
All the new non-executive directors will assume hands-on roles in the absence of a management team and look to immediately kick goals for shareholders by focusing on projects with a traditional exploration earn-in model.
Bastion previously reported on a non-JORC resource at its ICE copper-gold project within Canada’s Yukon Territory. The resource stands at 4.56Mt grading 1.48 per cent copper and has significant gold credits, estimated at 0.15g/t to 0.85g/t.
Late last month, the company said it anticipated receipt of a commissioned report for a JORC mineral resource estimate for ICE, which could have been a catalyst for today’s price action.
The company went into a trading halt mid-afternoon Friday, which will last until a response to an ASX price query and an announcement on the release date for the company’s maiden JORC resource for the ICE project.
The picturesque Yukon territory in northwest Canada, where Bastion Minerals is seeking to convert a foreign copper-gold mineral resource at its ICE project into a JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate. Credit: File
CODEIFAI LIMITED (ASX: CDE)
Up 120% (1c – 2.2c)
Coming in fourth place for the week is brand solutions technology group Codeifai Ltd, which on Tuesday morning revealed news of a $570,000 share placement to professional and sophisticated investors.
Like a footballer crumbling to the turf one hour after receiving a bone-jarring bump, the share price and trading volumes initially showed little response. A delayed reaction kicked in on Wednesday with volumes jumping to 7.5M shares traded for the day, accompanied by a 100 per cent surge in Codeifai’s share price.
The shares ran again on Thursday, driven by almost 6M traded shares, touching a weekly high of 2.2c a share for a tasty 120 per cent gain for the week.
Codeifai recently pivoted to become a brand solutions specialist that develops and sells digital solutions using QR code technology through its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings ConnectQR and ProtectCode.
The company says its Connect QR with AI-generated QR codes can produce revenue 24/7 and its ProtectCode solution, integrated with its own cloud-based platform, provides unique QR codes for each product to ensure authenticity. It has already generated millions of codes.
QR codes are used for payment gateways, and the beauty of its SaaS offering is its ability to generate 24/7 customer signups.
Codeifai was also hit with a speeding ticket from the ASX constabulary late Thursday and went into a trading halt, pending its response to the price and volume surge.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Craig Nolan
