Vantage Metals (ASX: VAN) - Whether the Chart Has Really Turned Up

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13 min read

One session up 25.8 per cent on the heaviest volume since July, and the session after it traded A$195. Whether that is a turn depends on the window you measure over.

Samso News, Reading the Chart. Vantage Metals (ASX: VAN), whether the chart has really turned up.

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On Friday 18 September 2026 Vantage Metals closed at A$0.039, up 25.8 per cent on the day. On the chart that shows as one tall jump at the right-hand edge of a long falling line. A reader seeing it would reasonably say the stock is turning up. This piece tests that idea against the chart and nothing else. Vantage Metals traded as Belararox under the code BRX until July 2026 [R2], so anyone searching the old code is looking at the same price history. Every figure is as at the close of Monday 21 September 2026, from the daily trading record for VAN since listing, checked against the ASX company page for VAN [R1].

Will Dix is presenting Vantage Metals and its large-scale copper projects in Botswana and Argentina. That is what brought the chart to the desk. It is not what this piece is about.

This is a Samso Chart Read. Samso takes the share price on its own terms, states each measure with the window it is taken over, explains what the measure is, and says what would make the reading wrong. There is no Samso Call in a Chart Read, and no entry, exit, target or position size. Samso does not tell anyone where to trade a price.

All prices in this piece are as at the close of ASX trading on 21 September 2026.

HOW TO USE THIS PIECE

Every technical term is explained in plain English where it first appears, and all of them are collected again in the vocabulary box at the back. TABLE 01 in section 3.00 puts every measure in one place with what it reads.

The bracketed numbers, like [R4], are sources. The reference list at the end names the document behind each one, so any figure here can be checked against the record it came from.

1.00 THE FIRST IMPRESSION. A 97 Per Cent Fall, Then One Sharp Jump

FIGURE 01 plots the closing price, meaning the last price the shares traded at, for every trading day since the company listed in January 2022 [R4].

The line falls a long way. The highest close in the record is A$1.45 on 23 March 2022, and A$0.039 is 97.3 per cent below that. At the very end of the line there is one sharp jump upward.

FIG. 01. Vantage Metals daily closing price falling from A$1.45 in March 2022 to under 4 cents, with an enlarged panel showing the 18 September jump and the unchanged session after it.

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2.00 THE TWO SESSIONS. The 18 September Jump and the Session After It

On 18 September the stock opened at A$0.033, traded between A$0.033 and A$0.039, and finished at A$0.039. That was a rise of 0.8 of a cent on a previous close of A$0.031. Traders read a finish at the top of the day's range as buying interest holding up, though the ASX sets the close by auction rather than by the last trade.

The next session tests that reading. On Monday 21 September the stock traded 5,000 shares and closed unchanged at A$0.039, about A$195 of stock changing hands.

The fortnight before the jump also changes how it reads. The stock closed at A$0.039 on 4 September and fell in every session to A$0.030 by 14 September, so the jump returned the price to where it sat ten trading days earlier and no higher.

The returns say the same. Over five trading days the stock is up 30.0 per cent. Over twenty it is unchanged. The direction you report depends on the window you pick, which is why a claim about a trend needs its window stated.

The ASX announcements record for VAN, read on 21 September 2026, shows nothing lodged since 14 September [R1]. Neither session followed a release.

3.00 THE MEASURES. Every Measure in One Place

TABLE 01 sets out every measure the rest of this piece uses, what each one is in plain English, and what it reads at the close of 21 September 2026. The sections below take them one at a time and explain where each measure comes from.

TABLE 01. The measures behind this reading, as at the close of Monday 21 September 2026. Every figure is Samso's arithmetic on the daily price and volume record for VAN [R4]. Columns: Measure, What it is, What it reads. Measure Closing price; What it is The last price the shares traded at that day, set on the ASX by an auction after normal trading ends; What it reads A$0.039 on 21 September 2026, unchanged, on 5,000 shares. Measure The session before it; What it is The session this piece is about; What it reads A$0.039 on 18 September, up 25.81 per cent on 892,564 shares. Measure 10-day exponential moving average; What it is The average of the last 10 closes, with recent days counting for more; What it reads A$0.0350. The price is 11.5 per cent above it. Measure 50-day simple moving average; What it is The average of the last 50 closes, every day counting equally; What it reads A$0.0369. The price is 5.6 per cent above it, and the line is 1.0 per cent lower than 20 sessions ago. Measure 200-day simple moving average; What it is The average of the last 200 closes; What it reads A$0.0629. The price is 38.0 per cent below it, and the line is 7.4 per cent lower than 20 sessions ago. Measure MACD and its signal line; What it is The gap between a 12-day and a 26-day average, against a nine-day average of that gap; What it reads -0.00104 against -0.00127. Crossed above the signal line on 21 September and has been below zero for 10 sessions. Measure ADX over 14 days; What it is How strong a trend is, without saying which way it points; What it reads 23.06, and under 25 for 43 trading days. Measure +DI and -DI; What it is Upward pressure against downward pressure; What it reads 48.49 against 35.22, so recent pressure points upward. Measure Return over 5, 20 and 60 sessions; What it is The price change across each window; What it reads +30.0 per cent, 0.0 per cent and +11.4 per cent. Measure Median daily turnover, 20, 60 and 120 sessions; What it is The middle day's dollar value of stock traded in each window; What it reads A$1,544, A$4,000 and A$14,132. Measure Sessions with no trades; What it is Days with zero volume, where the ASX carries the previous price forward; What it reads 2 of the last 20 and 11 of the last 120. Measure Upper Donchian channel, 55 sessions; What it is The highest the stock has traded on any day in the window; What it reads A$0.045.

4.00 THE MOVING AVERAGES. What the Moving Averages Say

A moving average is the average of the closing prices over a set number of past days, recalculated daily. It smooths out the daily jumps so the underlying direction shows. A longer window moves more slowly. FIGURE 02 draws three of them against the price for the last 250 trading days.

The 10-day exponential moving average sits at A$0.0350, and the price is 11.5 per cent above it. Exponential means recent days count for more than older ones, so the line reacts fast. The 50-day simple average, where every day counts equally, sits at A$0.0369, and the price is 5.6 per cent above it. That line has almost stopped falling, down 1.0 per cent over the last twenty sessions.

The 200-day simple average sits at A$0.0629. The price is 38.0 per cent below it, and that line is still falling, 7.4 per cent lower than twenty trading days ago.

Those three measure different lengths of time, which is why they disagree. The 200-day average is the line most professional traders use to separate a rising market from a falling one, a convention that goes back to Robert D. Edwards and John Magee in Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, 1948, the book that set down most of the charting practice still in use [R8]. On that measure nothing about Vantage Metals has changed.

FIG. 02. VAN closing price with three moving averages, the price sitting above the two short lines and well below a falling 200-day line.

5.00 THE MOMENTUM MEASURES. What the Momentum Measures Say

Momentum measures ask how hard a price is being pushed rather than where it sits.

MACD, moving average convergence divergence, tracks the gap between a 12-day and a 26-day moving average, then compares that gap with a nine-day average of itself called the signal line. Above the signal line, short-term pressure is improving. Below zero, the shorter average is still under the longer one. It was devised by the American money manager Gerald Appel, in his booklet The Moving Average Convergence-Divergence Trading Method [R7], for which no first publication year is verified.

FIGURE 03 shows MACD at -0.00104 against a signal line of -0.00127. It crossed above its signal line on 21 September, its first session above, and it remains below zero, where it has now been for ten sessions.

It crossed on 5,000 shares. A measure built from averages of the closing price moves on a close whether or not anybody traded at it.

FIG. 03. MACD and its signal line for VAN, crossing at the right-hand edge with both still below zero, over a histogram of the gap between them.

ADX, the average directional index, measures how strong a price trend is without saying which way it points. Direction comes from two companion lines, +DI for upward pressure and -DI for downward. The measure comes from J. Welles Wilder's New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems of 1978 [R6], the book that also gave the market the relative strength index. The convention that a reading above 25 marks a trend is later market practice, not Wilder's own.

FIGURE 04 shows ADX at 23.06, with +DI at 48.49 against -DI at 35.22. Recent pressure points upward and the strength reading sits below 25, where it has been for 43 trading days. Traders call that a range, meaning a price drifting sideways between rough limits.

FIG. 04. Two panels for VAN, an ADX line spending long stretches below 25, and the two directional lines with upward pressure currently above downward.

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6.00 THE TURNOVER. How Much Stock Actually Changed Hands

Volume is the number of shares traded. Turnover is the dollar value of them, and turnover is the more useful of the two here, because a large number of very cheap shares is still a small amount of money.

FIGURE 05 plots daily volume for the last 120 trading days with the 20-day median across it. The median is the middle value of a set, a fairer guide than an average, which one heavy day drags upward.

The 18 September session traded 892,564 shares, the most in any session since 7 July 2026, and 21.5 times the median of the 20 sessions before it. The session after it traded 5,000 shares, which is 0.12 times that same median.

The size of that base is what needs care. Median daily turnover across the last 20 sessions was A$1,544, and two of the 20 had no trades at all. At 60 sessions the median is A$4,000, with seven no-trade days.

At the closing price the 18 September session turned over about A$34,810 and the session after it about A$195, both Samso's own arithmetic of closing price times volume.

Twenty-one times a very small number is still a small number. That does not make the move false. It does mean the multiple carries less weight than it first appears.

FIG. 05. Bar chart of VAN daily volume with a tall bar on 18 September, a very small one on 21 September, a low 20-day median line and eleven no-trade days marked.

7.00 THE PRICE RECORD. Price Steps and No-Trade Days

The ASX sets the smallest amount a price can move, and it varies by price band. That amount is called the price step, or tick. Under 10 cents it is 0.1 of a cent [R5]. At A$0.031 one step is 3.2 per cent of the price, and the whole 18 September move was eight steps. A percentage change that looks large can be a handful of the smallest available increments.

When no shares trade, the ASX carries the previous price forward. Eleven of the last 120 sessions show zero volume and an unchanged close. The flat stretches in FIGURE 01 and FIGURE 05 are an absence of trading, not a price holding steady.

THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS

A stock that has stopped falling often looks like this at the start. The 18 September session finished at the top of its range on the heaviest volume since 7 July, the 50-day average has almost stopped falling, and MACD has now crossed above its signal line.

The quiet session that followed settles nothing either way, because one slow day after a jump is ordinary. What would settle it is turnover.

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8.00 WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS READING. Turnover, A$0.045 and the 200-Day Average

Each of the three is visible on the chart and needs no company information.

Turnover that stays. Three or four consecutive sessions above roughly A$50,000 would say a different set of people is trading the stock. The first session after the jump came in at A$195.

A close above A$0.045. That is the highest the stock has traded on any day in the last 55 sessions, a level called the upper Donchian channel, after Richard Donchian, the commodity trader who was among the first, from the 1940s onwards, to trade to a written set of rules [R9]. Clearing it on real volume would be the first thing here to look like a breakout, meaning a move out of the range rather than a bounce inside it.

The 200-day average levelling off. It is falling at 7.4 per cent over twenty sessions. A flat or rising 200-day line is what turns a short move into a trend.

9.00 SAMSO CONCLUDING COMMENTS. What the Vantage Metals (ASX: VAN) Chart Supports

Vantage Metals is trading in a range near the bottom of its twelve-month span of A$0.030 to A$0.150. The short-term measures have improved and the long-term measures have not moved. The 18 September session is real and it finished strongly. It also recovered ten sessions of lost ground and went no further.

Someone calling this chart an uptrend has read the last week accurately. The same chart over the last year does not support that description. Both readings sit in the one picture, which is why the window has to be stated whenever anyone describes a trend.

Vantage Metals is an exploration company with drilling under way, per its announcement Drilling Commences at the Kalahari Copper Project, 23 July 2026 [R3]. What that drilling produces is outside what a chart can say.

SAMSO TAKE

The measure that decides this chart is turnover. MACD crossed above its signal line on a day when A$195 of stock changed hands, and the median session over the last twenty traded A$1,544. Most of the indicators on this page are computed over a market that barely traded. Will enough stock change hands to make any of them mean anything?

THE WORDS IN THIS PIECE, IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Closing price. The last price the shares traded at that day. On the ASX it is set by an auction after normal trading ends, not simply by the final trade.

Trading day, or session. A day the exchange is open. There are about 254 in a year, so 120 trading days is roughly six months and 20 is roughly a month.

Moving average. The average closing price over a set number of past days, worked out again each day. It smooths out the daily noise so the direction underneath shows. Reading the 50-day and the 200-day as the divide between a rising and a falling market is a convention that goes back to Robert D. Edwards and John Magee, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, 1948, the book that set down most of the charting practice still in use.

Exponential moving average. A moving average that counts recent days for more than older ones, so it turns faster than a simple average of the same length.

MACD. Short for moving average convergence divergence. The gap between a 12-day and a 26-day moving average, compared with a nine-day average of itself called the signal line. A measure of momentum rather than of value. Devised by the American money manager Gerald Appel, in his booklet The Moving Average Convergence-Divergence Trading Method. The copies in circulation are reprints and Samso has not verified a first publication year.

ADX, or Average Directional Index. A measure of how strong a price trend is rather than which way it points, from J. Welles Wilder, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978. That one book also gave the market the relative strength index and the average true range, which is why the name is worth knowing. The convention that above 25 is a trend and below 20 is no trend came later and is not Wilder's own.

+DI and -DI. The two companion lines to ADX, also Wilder's. +DI measures upward pressure and -DI downward. Whichever is higher is the direction the recent pressure points.

Range. A price drifting sideways between rough limits rather than travelling in one direction.

Breakout. A price pushing clear of the range it has been drifting in, usually on heavier trading than normal, which traders read as the start of a move.

Volume. The number of shares that changed hands in a day.

Turnover, or value traded. The dollar value of the shares that changed hands, being the number of shares multiplied by the price. On a very cheap share it describes how real a market is far better than the share count on its own.

Median. The middle value once every day in a window is lined up in order. It describes an ordinary day better than an average, which one very busy day can drag upwards.

Price step, or tick. The smallest amount a price can move. The ASX sets it by price band, and below 10 cents it is one tenth of a cent.

Donchian channel. The highest high and the lowest low over a set number of past days, drawn as two lines, with a close above the upper line read as a breakout. Named for Richard Donchian, a commodity trader who from the 1940s was among the first to trade a written set of rules rather than a view.

References and sources

Prices and the number of shares traded cover every trading day from 27 January 2022, the company's first day of quotation, to 21 September 2026, which is 1,176 of them. Dates are the exchange's own, in Sydney time. The last price, the day's change, the volume, the shares on issue and the 52-week range were cross-checked against the ASX company page for VAN on 21 September 2026 and match. No bar was taken on the day it traded. The adjusted close equals the close on all 1,176 bars and the corporate-action record is empty, so there is no consolidation, split or dividend in the window and nothing in the price line has been restated. The company traded as Belararox Limited under the code BRX until July 2026 and the price record is continuous across the change. Every chart is an original Samso illustration of sourced data, and no company figure or diagram has been reproduced. Every percentage, median and dollar figure in the piece is Samso's own arithmetic on that price series. The price steps are from the ASX. Market-sensitive figures are stated as at the close of 21 September 2026 and change daily. The bracketed numbers through the piece point to the entries below, so any claim can be traced to the document behind it.

[R1] ASX, Vantage Metals Limited (VAN) company page and market announcements, asx.com.au, read 21 September 2026. Source for the company name, the listing date of 28 January 2022, shares on issue, the 52-week range, and the announcement titles and dates quoted in the piece.

[R2] ASX, Change of ASX name and ticker code, Vantage Metals Ltd, lodged 13 July 2026 under the code BRX. Source for the change of name from Belararox Limited and of code from BRX to VAN.

[R3] ASX, Drilling Commences at the Kalahari Copper Project, 23 July 2026. The only company announcement cited in the piece, and only to state what stage the company is at.

[R4] Daily price and volume bars for VAN, 27 January 2022 to 21 September 2026, 1,176 trading days, retrieved 21 September 2026. The price series behind every figure and the cover.

[R5] ASX, Australian equities trading, asx.com.au, read 19 September 2026. Source for the minimum price steps: 0.1 cent up to 10 cents, 0.5 cent from 10 cents to $2.00, and 1 cent at $2.00 and above.

[R6] J. Welles Wilder Jr, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978. The origin of the Average Directional Index, its two directional lines, the relative strength index and the average true range.

[R7] Gerald Appel, The Moving Average Convergence-Divergence Trading Method. The origin of MACD. The copies in circulation are later reprints and no first publication year has been verified for this build.

[R8] Robert D. Edwards and John Magee, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, 1948. Where the moving-average conventions used here entered the charting canon.

[R9] Curtis Faith, Way of the Turtle, 2007. The published account of the Donchian channel in a rule-based trading system.

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