Trading Summary (February 11, 2002)

In a reversal of recent fortune, the gold issues on the Toronto Stock Exchange plummeted nearly 5.9% on Monday to end at 5,945.67 points. On the other side, the base metal miners joined the rest of the market in posting a 2.4% gain to 4,458.6 points. Leading the gainers were the hot-again technology stocks, which rose 3.4% to 3,715.19 points. Overall the TSE 300 composite index added 69.14 points to finish at 7,604.5.

Most active among the sagging golds was TVX Gold, which shed 4 to $1.02 on more than 4.4 million shares. The gold majors performed similarly. Franco-Nevada Mining slipped $2 to $30; Barrick Gold lost $2/06 to $28.44; Placer Dome fell $1.38 to $19.86; and Kinross Gold retreated a nickel to $1.70.

On Monday, Reuters reported that Placer and South Africa’s Aquarius Platinum had held unsuccessful merger talks. Aquarius confirmed that the company had, "some discussions with Placer in relation to it acquiring an interest of some nature in Aquarius. Those discussions have been terminated.” A deal would have given Placer a foothold in the platinum group metals business. Aquarius shares jumped in overseas markets.

Another gold miner making news was Cambior, which announced a special warrant offering worth up to $30 million. The company said a syndicate of underwriters led by Sprott Securities, had agreed to buy more than 13.8 million special warrants for $1.30 apiece, with an option to buy another 9.2 million of the warrants at the same price. The company’s shares fell 16 or 12% to $1.17.

Alcan led the country’s base metal producers with just 677,108 shares on the go. The aluminum giant’s shares climbed $1.84 to $61.58. On Friday, Alcan announced plans to buy a 20% stake in the Alouette smelter in Quebec and said that it had filed a lawsuit over ownership rights in Germany’s Norf aluminum rolling mill.

Other base metal stocks to post gains were: Inco, up 97 to $28.90; Falconbridge, 44 higher at $16.49; Noranda, which tacked on 4 pennies to reach $15.77; Swedish miner Boliden, plus 30 to $6.95; and Teck Cominco’s B shares, which added 29 to hit $13.74.

Uranium producer Cameco returned much of Friday’s gains slipping $1.16 to $43.99. Late last week, Cameco posted sharply higher fourth-quarter earnings of $28 million (50 per share), compared with $14 million (26 per share) the previous year.

Canada’s junior exchange rallied in the last hour of trade to finish the session solidly in the black. The S&P-CDNX Composite Index gained 8.57 points, or 0.8% to close at 1150.05.

Alexis Resources topped the most actively traded chart, tacking on 2 to 16 on 2.3 million shares. The company recently dropped the Newmac copper-gold property in the Chilcotin area of British Columbia, and is reportedly in discussions to acquire some diamond ground in the Otish Mountains area of northern Quebec.

Samex Mining continued to trade heavily. Stock in the junior ended the day at 17, up 1 on 572,340 shares. Samex is currently seeking financing for the Eskapa polymetallic project in Chile.

ECU Silver Mining ended the day unchanged at 2 on 505,000 shares. The company holds the Velardena mine property in Mexico where total resources are pegged at 2.5 million tonnes grading 2.8 grams gold and 269 grams silver per tonne.

Moving lower with the price of gold, Olympus Pacific Minerals lost 2 to close at 75 on 450,300 shares. The junior recently announced the discovery of a new high-grade zone of gold mineralization at Khe Rin prospect, in the Phuoc Son project in central Vietnam.

Vannessa Ventures dropped 7 to close at $1.77 on 100,800 shares. Stock in the company has surged over the past two weeks on the back of higher gold prices. The junior recently obtained an exploitation permit for it’s 100% owned Crucitas gold project in Costa Rica.