Hot Money Monday: China-based rare earths play ViaGold is up 600pc this month on no news

Among the stocks running hottest this week was ViaGold Rare Earths Resources (ASX:VIA), which counts some big Chinese companies as major shareholders and has been surging in September on no news.

Each week, Stockhead recaps ASX stocks that are “running hot” as deduced by the Relative Strength Index (RSI).

The RSI is a technical gauge which measures how trading momentum is affecting the price action.

A reading of 70 is seen as the level at which a company may have been overbought. If a stock has a reading of 30 or below, it could be undervalued.

Click here for a more detailed rundown of what the RSI does and how it’s used.

While there’s usually a pretty good reason if a given stock is running hot (or cold), investors are also on the lookout for opportunities where the price action has separated from fundamentals.
 

Running Hot

Here’s a summary of the stocks that were running hot for the two weeks ended Friday, September 24:

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

Rare earths/gold explorer Orion Metals (ASX:ORM) is a shell company that trades on low volume, but that hasn’t stopped the share price almost tripling to 5c (from 1.6) since the start of August.

ORM shares moved sharply higher again last Thursday on no news, and the price action resulted in an abnormally high 14-day RSI of 98 during Friday trade.

Shares in another rare earths play, ViaGold Rare Earths Resources (ASX:VIA), have been accelerating even faster in recent weeks — also on no news.

Backed with a major shareholding by China state-owned enterprise Guangdong Rare Earths Industry Group Co, ViaGold carries out rare earths processing functions in the Chinese market.

Its 4C filing for the June quarter showed positive net operating cashflows of $976,000, on cash receipts of $14.6m.

While VIA hasn’t provided any recent market updates, the stock has been surging higher in September, and posted a 14-day RSI of 94.

After closing at 4.2c on August 27, data from Commsec only shows trading activity on nine days in September so far.

But the stock ripped higher on all nine of those days, including a 126% surge on September 8. At Friday’s closing price of 30c, VIA shares have risen by 614% month to-date in the absence any market-moving announcements.

Rounding out the top three this week was Aura Energy (ASX:AEE), which attracted plenty of attention when it rejoined the ASX boards last Thursday following a long suspension.

While off-market, the company raised $2.6m from investors to develop its Tiris uranium project in Mauritania, and commenced re-trading in the midst of a uranium frenzy that kicked off last month, when the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SPUT) started buying up physical uranium.
 

Running Cold

Here’s a summary of the stocks that were running cold for the two weeks ended Friday, September 24:

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.