ASX gold stocks, on average, outperformed the benchmark in the financial year just past. That was helped by a 21% surge in the gold price over the 12 months, with the yellow metal currently fetching US$2,327 per ounce.
As for the gold miners, in FY 2024 the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD) gained 11.2% compared to an 8.3% gain posted by the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO).
While that's some significant outperformance, it pales in comparison to the gains delivered by the top three performing ASX gold stocks over the financial year.
Which miners are we talking about?
Read on!
The top 3 ASX gold stocks of FY 2024
The third-best performing ASX gold stock in FY 2024 was Red 5 Ltd (ASX: RED).
Red 5 ended FY 2023 trading at 19 cents a share and closed on Friday trading for 36 cents a share for a very tidy 89% gain.
Atop a series of successful exploration results over the year, the Red 5 share price also enjoyed a 20.5% daily gain on 18 September.
That came as investors reacted to news that someone had bought almost 11% of Red 5's shares in a single block trade for 26 cents a share. That represented a premium of 18.2% to the share price on the day. Though, as we know now, Red 5 was poised to keep running higher.
The miner also caught some tailwinds from its own success. This saw it added to the ASX 200 on 18 March as part of the S&P/ASX Indices quarterly rebalance.
Moving on to the second-best performing ASX gold stock in FY 2024, we have FireFly Metals Ltd (ASX: FFM).
FireFly shares closed FY 2023 trading at $5.40 and ended the 2024 financial year trading at 75 cents.
Wait. What?
Oh, right. The ASX gold stock underwent a 15 to 1 share consolidation in early December.
That means we need to compare $5.40 a share to $11.25 a share (15 x $0.75). Meaning the FireFly share price soared 108% over the 12 months.
As you'd expect, a lot went right for the miner, including a successful $52 million capital raise in March that will enable the company to accelerate its resource growth.
The surging share price also saw FireFly added to the All Ords on 28 March as part of the same S&P/ASX Indices quarterly rebalance that saw Red 5 added to the ASX 200.
Most recently, the FireFly Metals share price closed up 13.7% on 19 June when the miner reported on high-grade copper and gold assays from the drilling campaign at its Green Bay Copper-Gold Project, located in Canada.
Gold star performer
Which brings us to the top-performing ASX gold stock in FY 2024, Ora Banda Mining Ltd (ASX: OBM).
The Ora Banda share price was on a solid uptrend for most of the year. Shares finished out FY 2023 trading at 13 cents and closed on Friday changing hands for 34 cents apiece, up a whopping 162%.
The miner enjoyed tailwinds from strategic asset sales, ongoing promising exploration results, and a $30 million capital raise to advance its Sand King underground mining works.
Investors were also enthusiastic about the ASX gold stock's multi-million-dollar farm-in agreement with Wesfarmers Ltd's (ASX: WES) Davyston Exploration, covering the non-gold mineral rights at its Davyhurst Project.
