African Gold shook ASX punters out of their slumber early this week as its share price also hooked up 100 per cent, rising from 2.2c to 4.4c on Tuesday. Notwithstanding the fact that it put out a quarterly on Wednesday, it was a resource update announcement on Tuesday that really created the noise.

The company reported a maiden resource of 450,000 ounces of gold running at 2.9g/t at its Didievi project in Cote d’Ivoire. Still at an early stage of development, the project has received more attention recently as the yellow metal price continues to gather pace.

As a shallow, high-grade deposit perfect for open-pit mining, capital expenditure will likely be modest if African Gold eventually decides to press the button to get into production. While any final investment decision is still likely to be at least two years off, the company still has plenty to be getting on with on the exploration front, with an estimated target that could triple the existing resource to some 1.5 million ounces.

African Gold is clearly in a hurry to capitalise on the lofty gold prices as it sets about pushing the rigs out to work on a 2000m program starting this month.

Appen just ’appens to be (see what we did there) a company that provides language technology data and services using AI into the business sector. And it delivered a cracking quarterly that put the doomsayers firmly back in their box.

The perennial black sheep of the tech sector that hit a lofty share price high of $38 in 2020, finally had some good news to tell … and the news clearly found some willing ears as the stock jumped 96.5 per cent from 44c to touch as much as 86.5c during the week.

The company’s revenues jumped significantly for the quarter by 16 per cent to $55 million, despite it losing its lucrative Google account.

Appen’s $21 million revenue for the month of June alone showed that its positive trend has continued, putting it on target for a $60 million-plus September quarter. Its biggest growth market remains China, which has become a significant adopter of AI and management believes that will drive its next wave of revenue growth.

Suffice it to say, Appen has now finally started to show some profit before tax clocking in, with a positive $600,000 for the three months to June. A $60 million cost-cutting exercise during the past year has also helped with the numbers and certainly put some green on the screen for long-suffering shareholders.

Finally, we turn to Atomos, which designs hardware devices for monitoring and recording as well as easy-to-use software tools. The company reported a $1 million uptick in quarterly sales to $9.7 million, which the market may have interpreted as a turnaround signal.

After a challenging four years affected by COVID, supply chain issues and a writer strike, the share price had suffered badly from a 50 per cent reduction in sales to $40 million and an EBITDA that plummeted from an $8 million profit to a $25 million loss.

But in efforts to stabilise the business, management first undertook a 50 per cent reduction in fixed costs and a drop in headcount from 150 to 70 personnel last year. Next, in efforts to recapitalise the balance sheet, it completed a $16 million capital raising in May that paid off its remaining debt of $8.3 million and reduced inventory by 62 per cent – bringing in further much-needed cash.

With two new products to roll out that haven’t kicked in any revenue yet, hopes may be running high that the worst is now in the rear-vision mirror and that green shoots have started to appear. The company’s share price reacted in that vein this week, jumping from 3.5c to 5.8c at its highest point – a leap of nearly 66 per cent

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