Trading Summary (September 23, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s energy sector was the lone subindex to advance on Monday, edging up just 0.8 of a point to 124.51. A US60 gain by gold to US$322.70 per oz. in New York wasn’t enough to lift the gold index, which slipped 2.92 points or 1.45%. The Diversified Metals & Mining index lost 2.97 points or 2.7%. In the end, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was off 121.95 points at 6,080.08.

Placer Dome was the most heavily traded of the gold majors, falling 53 to $15.90 with just more than 3.8 million shares changing hands. Placer recently extended its bid for Aussie gold miner AurionGold until Oct. 2. At last report Placer had about 38% of AurionGold’s shares.

Kinross Gold and Barrick Gold lagged behind a bit. Kinross grabbed 4 to make $3.59; Barrick went the other way, dropping 55 to $27.38. Mid-tier producer GoldCorp suffered a late-day drop to come in 31 lighter at $17.19.

Among the few rising gold stocks were: Cambior, plus 4 to $1.70; Echo Bay Mines, plus 3 to $1.86; Iamgold, which tacked on a dime to reach $6.90; and Glamis Gold, which did the same to settle at $15.75.

Alcan dropped 90 to $39.05 with just fewer than n1.4 million shares crossing the floor to rank as the busiest base metal miner.

On Monday, Alcan announced it plans to close its Banbury U.K., research and development facility as part of a reorganization of global fabrication technology sites. Work formerly done at the site will be spread among operations in Kingston, Ontario, and Neuhausen, Switzerland.

Inco slipped 67 to $25.18 on less than 1.2 million shares. The nickel giant has completed its US$400 bond offering in the U. S. The US$395 million in net proceeds will be used to sustain existing operations and for general corporate purposes, which may include the purchase or redemption of the company’s outstanding securities (other than common shares).

Canada’s junior bourse faced an onslaught of sell orders ending the session at a new 52-week low. The TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 13.45 points, or 1.4%, to close at 975.46.

Bucking the dour tone was Diamonds North Resources. The junior climbed to a new 52-week high before settling down to end the day at 65, up 14 on 495,502 shares. The company recently announced high diamond counts from initial drill intercepts on its wholly-owned Blue Ice property on Victoria Island.Some 118 diamonds were recovered from a 6.49 kg sample.

Pan Asia Miningcontinued to trade near a 52-week low, ending the session down a penny to 2 on 468,000 shares. The junior has been attempting to advance a series of diamond projects in China.

Anooraq Resources lost 2 to close at 59 on 52,000 shares. The Hunter Dickinson led company reported that hole 7 on the Rietfontein property in the northern limb of the Bushveld complex in South Africa returned 89.7 metres grading 0.74 gram platinum-palladium-gold, 0.24% nickel and 0.19% copper.

Copper Ridge Explorations doubled in value on news that a recently completed ground based gravity geophysical survey defined a strong anomaly related to known hematite breccia occurrences on the HEM property, 130-km northeast of Dawson City in the Yukon. Shares in the junior ended at 10, up 5 on 166,000.