Who Made The Gains? Here are May’s top 50 miners and explorers

Investors – where to put your money when everything looks so bloody good?

Iron ore touched $200/t once again to close out a volatile month in positive territory.

Gold bounced back to record its biggest month-on-month gain since July last year.

Poor cousin silver and the platinum group elements – platinum, palladium, rhodium – weren’t far behind.

Red hot base metals nickel (+1.6%), copper (+2.5%), lead (+0.65%), zinc (+2.83%) and tin (+3%) got hotter.

Meanwhile, battery metals like lithium, cobalt and graphite continued their resurgence.

It’s hard to argue against experts who say we are in the midst of a ‘commodities super cycle’. So, what were the top 50 resources winners for May searching for?

Mostly gold and copper, but with a healthy amount of everything else, sans battery metals (don’t worry, there’s always next month).
 

Here are the top 50 ASX resources stocks for the month of May >>>

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop

There’s nothin’ like nearology

In April, Rumble Resources (ASX:RTR) gained 500% after hitting the zinc-lead motherlode at ‘Chinook’, part of the Earaheedy project in WA.

It didn’t take long for the ‘nearologists’ – stocks that pick up ground near a major discovery – to benefit.

Recent IPO BPM (ASX:BPM) gained 134% after picking up three projects next to Rumble.

The projects – Hawkins, Ivan Well and Rhodes – cover the same rock layer ‘target zone’ as Chinook, BPM says.

Importantly, the ground was pegged prior to the recent Rumble discovery, “delivering a first mover advantage with all surrounding ground now fully pegged”.

Great Boulder Resources (ASX:GBR) raised $5.5m to explore the Whiteheads (gold, nickel) and Side Well (gold) projects, as well as the ‘Wellington’ acquisition near Rumble in the Earaheedy Basin.

Special mention goes to hard-working tiddler Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR) which — on the same day market darling Rumble launched a new drilling campaign – re-rated on a big discovery at its Novales lead-zinc project in Spain.

Nearologists also continue to dine out on Chalice Mining’s (ASX:CHN) Julimar discovery.

Before Chalice came crashing in, tearing up the rulebook, companies had only really explored and mined the area for bauxite and mineral sands.

It was not a known nickel-copper-PGE province at all.  This is true frontier exploration, despite being less than an hour from Perth.

In May, standout explorers included Caspin Resources (ASX:CPN) (+306%), Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR) (+42%) and Venture Minerals (ASX:VMS) (+29%) – although Liontown (lithium) and Venture (iron ore, tin) have other very attractive irons in the fire to explain their gains.

Special mention goes to Errawarra Resources (ASX:ERW) which is hunting ‘Julimar style’ deposits at its Errabiddy project in WA’s Mid-West.