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By Kishori Krishnan Exclusive To Gold Investing News

They are In Demand and they could be getting too hot to handle. Gold stocks have investors in a frenzy, and despite the gold price shining strong above the $1,000 bracket, investors appear to be lapping up gold stocks like there is no tomorrow.

Why the frenzy? Is it a mere bubble? What is behind the volatile rise in prices? There appear to be too many questions and too little answers.

For sure, there is intense interest among the world’s 100 most-in demand listed gold stocks. And why not? A selection of 100 of the world’s most in-demand gold stocks yields up a current aggregate market value of $197 billion.

Collectively, these names comprise the world’s most demanded mining subsector at this point in time.

Miners shine

Last month saw a number of “new entries” into the list of most in-demand gold stocks, not least CanPlats Resources, owner of the rather spectacular Camino Rojo discovery in Zacatecas state, Mexico.

The company has completed more than 38,000 meters of drilling at Camino Rojo and has outlined 3.44m ounces gold and 60.7m ounces of silver, with further ounces of both metals likely to be graduated up the ladder as work continues.

For all this, CanPlats carries a relatively modest market value of US$ 136 million, which may be compared with the US$ 1.1 billion carried by Andean Resources, with 2.3 million ounces of gold outlined at its Cerro Negro project in Argentina.

While further ounces are likely to be declared for Cerro Negro, either Andean is overvalued or CanPlats is undervalued. For some time, Andean has been the subject of notable promotion by a number of professional gold analysts.

Exeter Resources too has zoomed back into focus with its Caspiche Project in Chile (close to being fully optioned from Anglo American Chile Limitada), a gold-copper porphyry system, 15 kilometers south of Kinross’s Maricunga (formerly known as Refugio) gold mine (+8m ounces of gold), and 10 kilometers north of Cerro Casale, jointly owned by Kinross and Barrick.

Gold reserves at Cerro Casale stand at around 24 million ounces, plus more than 5 billion pounds of copper. Andina Minerals’s new Volcan gold deposit, 35 kilometers north northeast of Caspiche, has seen 10 million ounces of gold outlined; Exeter’s Caspiche itself has outlined nearly 9 million ounces of gold and 2 billion pounds of copper.

Investors see fit to accord Andina as a whole a market value of just US$ 136 million and Exeter just US$ 266 million.

Ventana Gold, busy drilling at La Bodega in Colombia, is valued at US$ 459 million by investors. The Toronto-listed explorer whose stock has risen 22-fold this year, said that its top shareholder - a fund controlled by Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista - had boosted its stake in the company to 17.5 per cent from 12.3 per cent.

La Bodega appears to be an extension of Greystar’s magnificent Angostura project, which for some considerable time has held 15 million ounces of gold resources, with expansions likely.

For all this, Greystar’s market value is US$ 187 million. Either Greystar is undervalued, or Ventana is overvalued. There has of late been moderate profit taking in Ventana.

Other fresh names among most demanded gold stocks include Archipelago, with 1.7 million ounces of gold outlined at its Toka Tindung property in Indonesia; Troy Resources (ASX:TRY),  with operations in Australia and Brazil and also with interests in Mongolia; Goldrich; Reed Resources, and Ascot Mining, amongst a host of others.

A substantial list of the normal suspects continue to benefit from seemingly indefatigable investor support and demand: Semafo; Norseman Gold; Int’l Tower Hill; Osisko; Northgate; Seabridge; Sino Gold…the list appears endless.

Investors are advised to keep digging…and unearth some of the best picks.

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