Trading Summary (August 18, 2003)

The Toronto Stock Exchange ended Monday’s trading session 20.78 points higher at 7,411.33. No thanks were due the gold index, which had 5.6 points carved off its hide to finish at 185.41. The gold miners suffered at the hands of the yellow metal;, which fell US$4.70-per-oz. to US$358.40. The base metal miners picked up some of the slack gaining 2.23 points to reach 146.23.

International Uranium vaulted to the most TSX’s most active spot, gaining 2.5, or nearly 7% of value, to make 38.5 with a shade more than 16 million shares traded. There was no immediate news out of the company, which holds more than 1.3 million hectares worth of precious metals and copper prospects in Mongolia.

Bema Gold took the bronze volume-wise, dropping 8 to $2.92 on 6.6 million shares. Bema recently reported more high-grade drill results from the Kupol gold-silver property in Chukotka, Far East Russia. Highlights include: 24.5 metres averaging 41.7 grams gold and 499.2 grams silver per tonne in hole 49 and 13.4 metres of 45.9 grams gold and 281.9 grams silver in hole 56.

Gabriel Resources pushed a nickel higher to $3.09 on the backs of about 3.3 million shares. Again there was no news out of the company.

No big surprise, Canada’s gold majors ventured lower. Barrick Gold fell 59 to $25.06, Placer Dome slipped a penny more than that to $17.74, and Kinross Gold shed 11 to $9.35. All three saw about 1.3 million shares cross the floor.

Mid-tier producer Meridian Gold slid 85, or about 5% of value, to $17.50 after Sprott Securities downgraded the company to “market perform,” from “buy,” citing recent share price appreciation and the absence associated short-term share price drivers. Earlier this year, Meridian was downgrade by Merrill Lynch over the timing of production at Esquel and recent share price strength.

LionOre Mining retreated 11 to $6.58 with more than 1.6 million shares changing hands to lead the base metal miners. The company recently posted record second-quarter earnings of US$11.1 million, or $0.07 per share in the three months ended June 30. Revenue jumped to US$71.2 million, from the US$10.4 million tallied last year.

Canada’s junior exchange started the trading week off by moving lower with declining stocks outpacing advancing issues by a 320-to-319 margin. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index fell back 5.69 points, or 0.46%, and closed at 1,235.08.

Bishop Resources continued to move higher, adding a penny to close at 25 on over 1.7 million shares traded. The junior has launched its 2003 exploration program on the Al and Lawyers gold properties in the Toodoggone District of north-central British Columbia.

PGM Ventures added 4 to close at 42 on 1 million shares traded. The junior is focussing in on the Thierry Mine property where 11,000 meters of surface diamond drilling were completed to test portions of copper-nickel mineralized zone to depths of -1400 feet. The drilling program successfully demonstrated the occurrence of Platinum Group Metals in association with areas of enriched copper-nickel mineralization.

Mag Silver lost a dime to close at $1.15 on 217,800 shares traded. The initial results from an on going 3,500 metre drill program returned narrow intervals of high-grade silver-gold values some 400-to-500 metres below surface on the Juanicipio claims in Mexico’s Zecatecas state.