Trading Places: Tech, gold & education are this week’s stock picks

Want to know where fund managers are putting their money? We’ve been keeping track so you don’t have to.

Trading Places is Stockhead’s recap of the substantial holder movements among ASX small caps over the last fortnight.

Substantial shareholders are those holding 5 per cent or more of a company’s shares — these can be directors, individual investors, or institutional investors.

Shareholders are required to announce to the exchange when they cross above or below the 5 per cent threshold, as well as any change in their holdings while they remain above 5 per cent.

Buyers

A couple of stocks this week belonged to the education sector. One is online education provider 3P Learning (ASX:3PL), of which Viburnum Funds now owns 25 per cent.

Viburnum opted to top up its stake despite the company currently undergoing a takeover.

Mayfield Childcare (ASX:MFD) welcomed New England investor Malcolm Ross who now owns just over 5 per cent of the company.

Regal Funds Management bought more shares in child-focused VPN provider Family Zone Cyber (ASX:FZO). Regal’s other buys in the tech sector included into regtech Kyckr (ASX:KYK) and recently listed translation tech stock Access Innovation Holdings (ASX:AIM).

Auckland-based Harbour Asset Management now owns over 10 per cent of Serko (ASX:SKO), which is a travel booking software platform.

Thorney Technologies topped up its holdings in Jayride (ASX:JAY), which helps you find airport transfers and has seen a substantial resurgence in demand in the last few months.

A significant proportion of trades were in the gold sector but none quite as interesting as Regal taking a 5 per cent stake in high-flying Chalice Gold Mines (ASX:CHN).

Chalice has won favour with investors in 2020 for its Julimar nickel discovery in Western Australia, but also offers investors exposure to gold through its Victorian projects. Earlier this week the company revealed it had made another big discovery at Julimar.

One of the few gold stocks that hasn’t done well is Dacian (ASX:DCN), which has more than halved in 12 months. But in recent days it won a new substantial holder — mining fund Sun Valley Investments.

Also winning a major mining investment fund as a new substantial holder was Saturn Metals (ASX:STN), which welcomed Franklin Resources to its register.

Sellers

The trio of categories popular with buyers in the last fortnight — gold, tech and education — was also popular with the sellers, especially the edtech stocks.

Amity Agency, which appears to be an e-textbook provider, sold shares in listed play Readcloud (ASX:RCL).

Remote examination tech stock Janison Education (ASX:JAN) saw Perennial Value Management cut its stake to 11.46 per cent.

Meanwhile, gold stocks that saw substantial holder sales included Havilah Resources (ASX:HAV) and Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) by Republic Investment Management and L1 Capital respectively.