Yahoo Finance Fortuna Silver (FSM) Hits 52-Week High: What's Driving It?
Shares of Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. FSM scaled a new 52-week high of $4.76 on Apr 5, before closing the session a tad lower at $4.71. The company’s share price boosted as gold prices hit record levels due to multiple factors like U.S. interest rate cut bets, geopolitical tensons, speculative buying and central bank purchases.
FSM has a market capitalization of $1.44 billion and carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) at present.
Shares of Fortuna Silver have risen 31.9% in the past three months compared with the industry’s 25.5% growth.
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Fortuna Silver’s shares have surged 54% since it reported fourth-quarter 2023 results on Mar 6, 2024. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 7 cents, which marked a solid 250% improvement year over year. Its results were aided by higher gold sales volume and improved gold prices. Quarterly revenues surged 61% year over year to $265 million on higher gold sales volumes and prices.
The improvement in gold sales volume was mainly attributed to the contribution of Séguéla in its second full quarter of production and increased sales at Yaramoko from higher processed head grade. This was partially offset by lower sales at San Jose. Realized gold price was $1,990 per ounce in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared with $1,737 in the year-ago quarter.
The company produced 107,376 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 326,638 ounces in 2023, both at record levels for the respective period. Silver production was reported at 1,354,003 ounces for the fourth quarter and 5,883,691 ounces for 2023.
Fortuna Silver’s gold equivalent production improved 6% year over year to a record 136,154 ounces in the fourth quarter of 2023. Gold equivalent production was 452,389 ounces in 2023, up 13% year over year.
The company also recently provided an update on its exploration programs at the Séguéla Mine in Côte d’Ivoire and the recently acquired Diamba Sud Gold Project in Senegal. At Séguéla, the company continues with its impressive run-rate of discoveries with the new Kingfisher prospect, which follows the Barana, Badior and Kestrel discoveries made during 2022 and 2023. In addition to the exploration success at Kingfisher, drilling for Koula underground mining potential has resulted in several high-grade intersections.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Some better-ranked stocks from the basic materials space are Ecolab Inc. ECL, Carpenter Technology Corporation CRS and Sylvamo SLVM, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ecolab’s 2024 earnings is pegged at $6.39 per share, indicating an increase of 22.7% from the prior year’s reported number. It has a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 1.7%. ECL's shares have risen 16% in the past three months.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Carpenter Technology’s 2024 earnings is pegged at $4.00 per share. The consensus estimate for 2024 earnings has moved 1% north in the past 60 days. CRS has a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 14.3%. CRS' shares have risen 22% over the past three months.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate Sylvamo’s 2024 earnings is pegged at $5.75 per share. The consensus estimate for 2024 earnings has moved up 21% in the past 60 days. SLVM has a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 24%. Sylvamo's shares have risen 26% over the past three months.
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