Gold mining stock: Northern Star Resources feeling golden as shares soar

A broker’s note on the state of gold mining stocks has been a huge driver of trading activity for one Western Australian-based company.

ASX Gold shares have been enjoying gains this year as investors look towards bullion as a safe haven in uncertain economic times.

The price of bullion is currently trading around US$2,336 per ounce which is up over 15 per cent since the end of February.

It’s translated into good news for the ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index which is up 23 per cent, and a new broker note by UBS has labelled the sector as ‘relatively attractive”.

One particular stock to get an upgrade by UBS was Northern Star Resources ($NST) which has translated into a 419 per cent increase in shares traded by Raiz investors over the last week.

The company was one of the few to increase output over the last quarter, during a period when many gold producers in Western Australia were impacted by rain and flooding.

It brings Northern Star into the top 10 stocks traded for the week, its first time in over a month.

Storming into the number 2 spot on the top 10, with a 298 per cent increase in shares traded, was Medibank Private ($MPL), this is despite being taken to court over a 2022 data breach.

The privacy watchdog will take legal action against the company for failing to protect the details of 9.7 million Australians, with fines potentially exceeding $21.5 trillion.

However, prior to this, Medibank has been on top form over the last six months, trading near its 52-week high of $3.94. The company’s revenues were up 1.3 per cent to $3.65 billion in H1 of FY24, and they reported a net profit after tax of $233.3 million, up 6 per cent year on year.

Origin Energy ($ORG) was another company that saw an increase this week, up 139 per cent on the last week. This does bring it back in line with previous weeks, where it has traded in the vicinity of 1,500 shares traded a week.

The company itself had no particular news this week other than news that it was willing to sell its Eraring power station to the New South Wales government for more than half a billion dollars.

Instead, the company has done a deal to keep the nation’s biggest coal-fired station open for at least another two years.

In the Raiz Plus portfolios, stocks to fall in trading activity this week were Telstra ($TLS) which had a drop of 52 per cent, Qantas ($QAN) which was 51 per cent and AGL Energy ($AGL) 48 per cent.

The ETF market continues to power ahead, with most of the top 10 ETFs having gains this week with just two exceptions to that.

BetaShares Australian High Interest Cash ($AAA) and iShares Core Composite Bond ($IAF) both had dips of 8 per cent and 1per cent respectively. They still maintained their positions in the top 10, even as every other ETF moved up.

In fact, there was a 6 per cent increase in overall ETFs traded with the total number of units traded reaching 577,464. Leading that was once again the Russell Investments Australian Select Corporate Bond ($RCB) with 151,335 units. That represents an over 400 per cent increase since the start of the month when it had under 30,000 units traded.

The biggest boost to an ETF this week was the BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ($HACK) which saw a 77 per cent increase in units traded. Australians were reminded this week just how important cybersecurity is, after the hacking of Ticketek. BetaShares has a diversified holding that provides exposure to the companies trying to beat the hackers, and will likely continue its popularity streak.

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Raiz Invest Australia Limited – Authorised Representative of AFSL 434776. The Raiz Invest Australia Fund is issued in Australia by Instreet Investment Limited (ACN 128 813 016 AFSL 434776) a subsidiary of Raiz Invest Limited and promoted by Raiz Invest Australia Limited (ACN 604 402 815). PDS and TMD are available on the Raiz Invest website and App. You should read and consider those documents before deciding whether, or not, to acquire and continue to hold interests in the product.