Resources Rising Stars: What does the market volatility mean for ASX juniors and mid-caps?

• The annual Resources Rising Stars Gather Round event has kicked off 
• This year’s event has attracted 400 investors 
• ASX small cap and mid-tier stocks share their thoughts on the state of the market 

Some of Australia’s most exciting up and coming resources stocks have joined AFL teams in flocking to Adelaide this week for the annual Resources Rising Stars Gather Round event.

The conference, which is in its 21st year, has cracked 400 investor registrations – a 25% jump on last year’s numbers – with a lineup of more than 30 junior and mid-tier companies across a gamut of commodities.

This year’s mining convention is set against the backdrop of volatile trading conditions and heightened price swings as US President Donald Trump hit pause for 90 days on reciprocal tariffs on more than 75 countries while lifting those on Chinese imports to 125%, sending the gold price soaring towards US$3090 per ounce.

Copper futures climbed 8.5% to US$4.4 per pound, nearly 20% down from their record high of $5.3 in March with the US signalling its intent to deliver tariffs on the red metal in the coming weeks.

We asked five resources stocks on the sidelines of the conference how they are positioned to navigate the current market uncertainty.

Trek Metals (ASX:TKM)

Market cap: $26.09m 

Commodity: gold 

“Like everyone, we were involved in the selloff when the price came down a bit but ultimately our share price is still up versus what we were a couple of months ago,” TKM CEO Derek Marshall said.

“A couple of months ago we were in the mid two cents range and now we are hovering around five cents so there is still good support with Trek’s stock.

“I think we are in the right commodity (gold) and in the right jurisdiction (WA) – we’re coming into a season of serious field activity where we are going to carry out geophysics and drilling on what could be a high-grade gold discovery at Christmas Creek,” he said.

“The underlying price of gold is high due to the volatility and if anything, it has given us a few tail winds – so far it’s been a positive for us.”

Boss Energy (ASX:BOE)

Market cap: $1.07b

Commodity: uranium 

“I’m not worried about the stock price volatility but I’m frustrated by it because I believe prices should be higher,” BOE managing director Duncan Craib said.

“It hasn’t affected what we are doing because we are fully funded, we’ve got no debt and we are producing at two assets.

“I have noticed a change in sentiment, there’s a number of new development projects which have struggled to go into production and I think it’s eroded a lot of investor confidence,” he said.

“Higher prices are needed to incentivise new development projects to come on, we saw Deep Yellow come out with the deferral of their final investment decision on its Tumas project in Namibia which shows a lack of conviction on their project and pricing.

“We are tarnished with that, even though we are delivering on everything that we said we would, we are achieving good sales prices – US$77.77 per pound from uranium oxide from Honeymoon mine, up from the initial inventory purchase price of US$30.15 per pound.”

Firetail Resources (ASX:FTL)

Market cap: $20.52m

Commodity: copper

“The copper price has never been better historically,” FTL managing director Glenn Poole said.

“The work still has to be done and it hasn’t changed our plans – in three months time we could be having a very different conversation.

“Its that short-term volatility that a lot of juniors have to battle with at the moment while trying to keep the momentum up, which makes it a bit difficult to juggle market expectations,” he said.

“If we’re not getting the support now to get that work done then the pains going to come in five years time when there is a huge deficit in supply.”

Kingsland Minerals (ASX:KNG)

Market cap: $7.98m 

Commodity: graphite

“The trade war between the US and China is impacting the supply of graphite, the price of graphite and will impact us down the track when we start developing our Leilyn project in the Northern Territory,” KNG managing director Richard Maddocks said.

“Apart from some market volatility of our share price going up and down, there’s no immediate impact except for the long-term market assessment on the supply of raw products.

“It hasn’t changed our plans at all, we are just going ahead with what we’re doing, we’re still planning on releasing a scoping study later this year and aim to move forward with a feasibility study after that.”

Norfolk Metals (ASX:NFL)

Market cap: $5.11m

Commodity: copper 

“We aren’t getting as affected as the mid-tiers, our top 20 shareholders hold 50% of the company so the market volatility doesn’t overly concern me day to day,” NFL executive chair Ben Phillips said.

“Our Carmen copper project is advanced, we’ve just announced a historical resource and we need to get back out there to drill more holes and increase our resource base.

“Copper is the most important metal for conductivity, electrification and transmission – the world’s population is expanding, which means we’ll be using more energy, which means more copper so it’s a great commodity to be in.”

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Kingsland Minerals, Trek Metals, Firetail Resources and Norfolk Metals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.