The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has had an interesting day of trading so far this Monday. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 is down by 0.14% at 7,293 points after falling pretty steadily all day. That stands in contrast to ASX 200 gold miner Newcrest Mining Ltd (ASX: NCM).
Newcrest shares have had a rather strange day of trading so far. This gold miner started the day off by opening at $23.51 a share before falling steeply, descending all the way down to $23.15 (a loss of 2.3%) soon after market open this morning. But, over the rest of the day, the Newcrest share price has staged something of a spirited comeback. As it stands currently, the company is trading at $23.95 a share, up a healthy 1.27%.
So what on Earth is causing these rather odd market gyrations for the ASX 200's largest gold miner today?
Why is the Newcrest share price all over the shop today?
It could have something to do with the update Newcrest announced this morning. This related to the Wilki Farm‐in and Paterson Farm‐in projects that it funds in conjunction with Antipa Minerals Ltd (ASX: AZY). My Fool colleague Zach went into this update in detail this morning. But it essentially revealed the results of test drilling at 6 targeted locations.
These results were a mixed bag. While some delivered promising results, others identified "no ore grade mineralisation" or else ran into problems with "abnormally high groundwater".
Antipa Minerals has said that it will analyse these results to "identify and rank new greenfield exploration targets for direct drill testing" in 2022. But it seems investors in Antipa were not impressed, seeing as this company's share price is down 8% today (at the time of writing). The initial woes the Newcrest share price had this morning could be related to Anitpa's nasty fall.
In some good news for Newcrest though, the gold price has kicked off this week on a positive note. Gold is currently going for US$1,801 an ounce today after spending most of the past month below the US$1,800 an ounce level.
At the current Newcrest share price, this ASX 200 gold miner has a market capitalisation of $19.51 billion, with a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.02 and a dividend yield of 3.13%.
