Liontown Resources Ltd (ASX: LTR) shares have been on an incredible ride over the last five years.
During this time, the company has gone from being a penny stock to a multi-billion lithium developer attracting takeover offers from industry giants.
In fact, if we step back to this precise time in 2018, the company had just revealed "highly encouraging results from an initial metallurgical test work program conducted on composite diamond drill core samples from its 100%-owned Kathleen Valley Lithium-Tantalum Project in Western Australia."
The release notes that the "results confirm that a saleable Li2O [lithium oxide] concentrate can be produced from the Kathleen Valley Project."
Little did the market know at the time, that this would be the start of something very special for investors in the space.
Investing $3,000 into Liontown shares five years ago
If you had responded to its announcement by putting $3,000 into the company, you would have been able to pick up a massive 150,000 Liontown shares at just 2 cents apiece.
Although the company's shares are now trading at half the price of the recent Albemarle Corp (NYSE: ALB) takeover offer, that doesn't mean the returns haven't been any less staggering.
With Liontown shares currently fetching $1.50, those 150,000 units we picked up five years ago would now be worth $225,000. That's a $222,000 return on our original investment!
Clearly, there are huge returns to be made in the resources sector if you can unearth a future star. However, it is worth remembering that for every Liontown, there are countless mining stocks that never make it out of penny stock territory.
So, while the rewards may be incredible, the risks are about as high as they get for investors.
