Insider Trades: Directors are buying shares in these 14 small cap ASX explorers

A summary of small cap mining director transactions valued at more than $10,000 between 28 March and 4 April.

Top small cap director buys

Interesting Observations

The gist of things: The price charts for most of these small caps are the same. They've all been badly beaten, down between 20-30% in the past year (and in some cases much more). The best performing stock among the list is Triangle Energy, a WA-based oil and gas explorer that's up about 6% in the past year.

Jervois Global's downward spiral: Shares in the cobalt developer have been in a downward spiral in almost any time frame, down 76% year-to-date and 92.5% in the past year. This follows a sharp decline in cobalt prices, from May 2022 peaks of US$80,000 a tonne to now US$35,00 a tonne. Last month, Jervois said it will halt the final construction of its Idaho Cobalt Project due to weak prices and inflationary pressures. This triggered a -42% selloff to 6.7 cents on the day of the announcement (29 March).

Between March 30-31, there were three director transactions that totaled $651,000. This triggered an oversold bounce between 31 March and 4 April, where the stock rallied as much as 35% to 8.5 cents. Those gains were rather short lived, with the stock trading at 6.5 cents on Wednesday.

The company says construction will continue when cobalt prices recover but until then, it's caught in a little bit of a limbo.

A lithium buy: Leo Lithium non-executive director Alan Rule purchased a $50,500 parcel at 51 cents per share on Thursday, 30 March. This was two days after the broad-based rally for lithium stocks which was triggered by Albemarle's $5.5 billion bid for Liontown Resources. Leo Lithium shares recently hit highs of 53 cents but have come back down to 49 cents on Wednesday.