It’s quite rare that the Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) share price is among the worst performers on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO).

It is even rarer for the electronic design software company’s shares to be the worst performer on the index.

But that is the case on Monday, with the Altium share price down over 8% to $33.31 in afternoon trade. At one stage its shares were down almost 13% today.

Why is the Altium share price sinking lower?

Investors have been selling the company’s shares after it released a disappointing trading update.

Despite the company launching attractive pricing and extended payment terms during the pandemic, it hasn’t been enough to offset the tough market conditions it is facing.

And although the company expects to deliver “solid” sales growth in FY 2020, it will fall short of the consensus estimate of US$192.5 million.

This is because traditionally Altium closes a significant amount of its second half business in the final two weeks of June. But with increased COVID-19 infection rates in the United States and a recent lockdown in Beijing, this won’t be the case this year.

Is this a buying opportunity?

While today’s share price decline is disappointing, I think it has created a buying opportunity for investors that are looking to make a long term investment.

I’m confident that Altium’s underperformance this year is strictly pandemic-related and expect it to bounce back once the crisis passes.

Overall, I believe that industry tailwinds remain very supportive of its long term growth and expect it to achieve its 100,000 subscribers target by FY 2025.

Combined with its other promising businesses, such as Octopart and NEXUS, I expect Altium to grow its earnings at an above-average rate for many years to come. This could make it a market-beater over the 2020s.

More reading

• Why Altium, Australian Ethical, Flight Centre, & Transurban are dropping lower
• ASX 200 flat: Altium update disappoints, Metcash posts full year loss
• These 5 ASX shares were last week’s top performers
• Altium share price sinks 7% lower after FY 2020 trading update
• Where I would invest $50,000 into ASX shares immediately

James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns shares of Altium. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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The Zenith Minerals Ltd (ASX: ZNC) share price is charging higher today on the back of promising initial reconnaissance sampling results at one of its Australian gold projects.

Zenith Minerals is a micro-cap ASX miner focused on advancing its portfolio of lithium, gold and base metals projects across Australia, the US, and Turkey.

What did Zenith Minerals announce?

This morning, Zenith announced that initial reconnaissance sampling has confirmed high-grade gold, silver and copper at surface at two prospects within its wholly-owned Flanagans gold project in Queensland.

Rock sample results included:

• Gold to 5.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, silver to 100 g/t silver and copper to 8.0% copper at the Flanagans prospect; and
• Gold to 3.4 g/t gold, silver to 273 g/t silver and copper to 13.9% copper at the nearby Great Blackall copper prospect.

According to today’s release, surface sampling confirms the historically reported local high tenor of gold, silver and copper mineralisation at both the Flanagans and Great Blackall prospects. Zenith believes these results endorse the requirement for further exploration activity.

The Flanagans project is located within approximately 100 kilometres of operating gold mines at Cracow and Mount Rawdon, and approximately 70 kilometres northeast of Zenith’s wholly-owned Red Mountain gold project.

Just last week, Zenith reported results from the maiden reverse circulation drilling program at Red Mountain. According to the miner, the program returned “highly encouraging near surface high-grade gold results”, which sent the Zenith Minerals share price rocketing 40% on the day.

Commenting on today’s update, chief executive Mick Clifford said:

“These are very early stage soil and rock-based results at the Flanagans Project. We are however encouraged by them particularly given that we were following up on some historical positive third-party results.”

The company noted that further work, including additional sampling, geological mapping and possible geophysical surveys, is required to determine the significance of surface geochemical samples at both prospects. Follow up field work is set to commence next week.

At the time of writing, the Zenith Minerals share price has jumped 9.52% to 11.5 cents. With this rise, the company’s market capitalisation currently stands at around $28 million.

More reading

• Zenith Minerals share price rockets 40% after intersecting high-grade gold

Motley Fool contributor Cathryn Goh has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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