S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) gold shares have broadly delivered strong returns over the longer term.
Taking a five-year horizon, the ASX 200 has gained 14%.
Here's how these leading ASX 200 gold shares performed over that same five-year period:
- Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) share price up 73%
- Newcrest Mining Ltd (ASX: NCM) share price up 12%
- Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN) share price up 44%
- Perseus Mining Limited (ASX: PRU) share price up 463%
- Silver Lake Resources Limited (ASX: SLR) share price up 203%
You're unlikely to find long-term investors with a diversified holding of ASX 200 gold shares complaining about those figures.
2022 has been a somewhat different story.
Shorter-term headwinds
Shorter-term, it's been a more difficult slog, with gold prices soaring to more than US$2,000 per ounce in early March only to retrace to the current US$1,829. That's right where prices were on 1 January.
Honing in on the 2022 performance, the ASX 200 is down 14%.
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD), which also contains miners outside of the ASX 200, is down 9% year-to-date. A decent if less than stellar outperformance for the Aussie gold sector.
And of the five big producers named above, all but one is beating the ASX 200 returns.
Yet only one has seen its share price gain in 2022. Can you guess which one?
The only ASX 200 gold share in the green for 2022
If you guessed Perseus Mining, give yourself a gold star.
The Perseus Mining share price has gained 5.3% this calendar year, bucking the wider selling trend among ASX 200 gold shares.
Perseus is currently trading for $1.75 per share. At that price, it pays a trailing dividend yield of 1.3%, unfranked.
The ASX 200 gold share has been successful on and under the ground, reporting record quarterly results in April, including setting new production and operating cash flow records.
On the production end, the company produced an all-time quarterly high of 130,523 ounces of gold.
While the miner did increase its cash expenditures during the quarter, it reported a 3% decrease in its weighted average all-in sustaining costs (AISCs) from the prior quarter, to US$908 per ounce.
That compares to the weighted average sales price it received during the quarter of US$1,701 per ounce.
