Director Trades: There was only one $1m buy this fortnight, and it came from one of the newest gold producers

The past fortnight saw ~$62.79m in big director sales and a more modest ~$20.5m in buys but the biggest buy of the week came from a relatively new gold producer.

Emerald Resources (ASX:EMR) director Ross Stanley bought just over $1 million on-market only six months after his company’s first pour.

Emerald tips production of 100,000-110,000oz of gold per annum from its Okvau project in Cambodia.

It has a low all-in-sustaining-cost of US$754/oz and is expected to generate net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) of US$238m and 57 per cent respectively, using a conservative per unit gold price of US$1,450/oz.

Other buyers

The next biggest buy also came from a director of a gold company – in Beacon Minerals’ (ASX:BCN) Graham McGarry who bought just under $1 million on market.

This company is also in the production phase having produced 5,338 ounces in October and November at its Jaurdi project – ahead of the company’s expectations for the quarter.

Among gold explorers, buyers included Ines Scotland and Sue-Ann Higgins from Metal Bank (ASX:MBK) as well as Philip Crabb from Ora Gold (ASX:OAU) who all chipped into their firms’ rights issues.

Two other buys came from the ASX’s handful of companies focused on the automotive technology sector.

One came from Traffic Technologies (ASX: TTI) director Con Liosatos who purchased ~$243,000 on market.

Last week his company signed a contract of up to approximately $10 million with Procurement Australia for the supply of its smart city products to Victorian local councils.

Also, Bronte Howson from car park builder Park’d (ASX:PKD) bought $100,000 in an off market transaction.

‘Non-traffic’ tech buyers included Fiona Brown from Dicker Data (ASX:DDR) who bought $122,281 in a Dividend Reinvestment Plan and David Williams from prop tech stock RMA Group (ASX:RMY) who bought $110,163 on market.

Kate Quirke, the boss of medtech and defence tech company Alcidion (ASX:ALC), bought $250,000 in her firms’ rights issue.

Sellers

Olive oil company Cobram Estate Olives (ASX:CBO) completed a capital raising which involved a $15.5m sell down from four directors – Samuel Beaton, Leandro Ravetti, Paul Riordan and Tim Jonas.

But on the other hand, their colleague Craig Ball purchased $451,686 as part of a Dividend Reinvestment Plan.

Shopping centre operator SCA Property Group (ASX:SCA) had two directors sell to pay a tax bill – Mark Fleming sold $245,723 and Anthony Mellowes sold $486,484.

Still with property stocks, the biggest sale came from Issac Fried of Home Consortium (ASX:HMC) who parted ways with over $21 million.

Booktopia (ASX:BKG) founder Tony Nash sold over $6 million in shares in an off market transaction to an institutional investor – which apparently would otherwise have been unable to buy in.