ARTICLES

Gold and Harmony

In our last Confidential Report, published on 6^th March 2024, we drew your attention to the fact that the US dollar price of gold was about to break up through a critical resistance level at $2060. Gold has now moved up to $2166 so this observation provided an opportunity for private investors to make a significant capital gain, either in actual gold or in specific gold shares.

Over the long term, gold has always offered an excellent hedge against the weakness of paper currencies and international political risk. The rand’s steady decline against the US dollar over the past 32 years is reflected in the rand price of gold which has gone from less than R1000 per ounce in August 1992 to current levels above R41000. Consider the chart:

One of the ways to capitalise on the steady rise in the rand price of gold is to buy krugerrands and they have performed very well as mechanism to protect your wealth against all the uncertainty and mismanagement which have become endemic features of the South African economy over the past three decades.

For those investors who have more risk appetite, there was always the option of buying the shares of those gold mining companies with good prospects. One such company is Harmony Gold. This mine used to be one of South Africa’s most marginal gold mines and the share was whip-lashed back and forth as the gold price went up and down.

Then in 2021 it bought the Mponeng gold mine for R4,2bn. Mponeng has the dubious distinction of being the deepest mine in the world – which obviously made it relatively risky. The benefit is that the deeper the mine in South Africa, generally the higher the recovered grade. This is because South African gold exists in conglomerate form as part an ancient sea-bed. Being a heavy metal, gold tended to sink to the bottom of that sea – so the best grades are found at the deepest levels. 

Clearly, the directors of Harmony took a huge risk in buying Mponeng gold mine - which the late Brett Kebble once described as the “...the world’s most expensive long-drop.” Their gamble has paid off handsomely, especially in the last year because the recovered grade from Mponeng is reaching 9 grams per ton, resulting in a 30% increase in gold production. Harmony’s headline earnings per share (HEPS) in their latest financials for the six months to 31^st December 2023 was up 226%.

We added Harmony to the Winning Shares List on 16^th November 2023 at a price of 9920c per share. It closed last Friday (22-3-24) at 14829c – a gain of 43,97% in just over 4 months. Consider the chart:

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PDSNET ARTICLES - JANUARY 2022

Market Correction

On Friday, the S&P500 index fell about 1,9% - and that was the fourth consecutive day’s fall – which took this correction to 8,3% from the record high of 4796,56 made on 3^rd January 2022. That makes it is by far the largest correction in the 20 months since the COVID-19 V-Bottom in March 2020. Consider the chart:

The Rand 2022

It is that time of year when various experts feel it incumbent on themselves to make predictions – especially for the progress of the rand during 2022. Of course, the strength of the rand is a vital component of any private investor’s analysis because so many of our shares have significant interests overseas or are engaged in exporting.

Aveng Opportunity

Over the past few years, we have consistently recommended Aveng (AEG) as an opportunity. Those who have followed our advice have more than doubled their money.

By the start of 2022, the company had substantially reduced its debt and completed a 500-for-1 consolidation. These two events have returned the share from being a marginal penny

Portfolio Structure

Private investors often accumulate a portfolio over a number of years, as and when they have surplus capital available. Typically, they do not give much thought about how that portfolio should be structured to maximize return and minimize risk.

To begin it is important to think about how many shares you want to have in your

Clicks

In our company investment club (which we introduced you to in our article on 14th December 2020) we showed that we had 46 Clicks (CLS) shares for which we had paid an average of R228.17. Subsequently we bought a further 41 Clicks shares on 3 of May 2021, at a cost of 245.61. This transaction brought our average cost up