West Australia-focused gold explorer Coolgardie Minerals is the latest gold float to disappoint – opening its first day at a 17.5 per cent discount to its 20c issue price.

The junior lit up the boards of the ASX today at 12.30 AEST after raising $4.25 million.

Coolgardie opened at 16.5c before recovering to 18.5c by the closing bell.

In the first trading session, $160,611 worth of shares changed hands.

Coolgardie’s debut follows Vancouver-based Black Dragon (ASX:BDG), which also raised cash at 20c apiece and listed on Wednesday. The company debuted at 19c before dipping to 17c, but recovering back level with its issue price by the close.

While the US dollar gold price edged lower to $1204.40 per ounce on US-China trade tensions, the Aussie dollar gold price actually strengthened to $1651.69 per ounce.

The recent record for ASX gold floats has been mixed.

Kingwest Resources (ASX:KWR) has yet to trade above its 20c issue price after listing last week.

Sultan Resources (ASX:SLZ) — which has a broad West Australian portfolio including gold, copper, nickel and cobalt — has also stayed around its issue price since listing a few weeks back.

As has fellow yellow metal miner Saturn Metals (ASX:STN) — which was spun off from Perth-based Peel Mining (ASX:PEX).

All three have fared better than Mako Gold (ASX:MKG) which has almost halved in price since its listing at 20c in April. It’s now trading around 11c.

“You can see we held our own and kept the price at 20c or higher and then we got hit by the gold price like everyone else, and when the price of gold went below $US1200 our share price fell just like everybody else,” Mako managing director Peter Ledwidge said at this week’s Africa Down Under conference in Perth, WA.

But Mr Ledwidge thinks Mako timed its float better than others.

“I think we got in just at the right time, just before things started falling apart a little bit,” he told Stockhead.

“I certainly don’t envy people that have to be raising money now.”

Coolgardie, meanwhile, owns a gold project 60km west of Kalgoorlie in the eastern goldfields of Western Australia.

Known as “Bullabulling”, the site has been under development for five years and has so far revealed 12 “high priority gold exploration targets and near term development opportunities”.

The IPO funds will be used to fund drilling to uncover potential extensions to several prospects.