Vancouver Stock Exchange No “slaughterhouse” for Destiny

These are certainly trying times for investors not only in Vancouver but on the big boards in New York and Toronto. It’s been a no win situation for just about everybody. Bargain hunters seeking quick profits after the crash were also mauled when markets plunged again — and it may not be over yet.

Investor confidence has been shaken badly which will impair the ability of companies to raise equity capital for exploration and new projects. This suggests a slowdown in exploration activity is inevitable which could be compounded by the government’s new tax reform bill and the elimination of earned depletion on flow-through shares.

One VSE official describes the local market as a “slaughterhouse” which unfortunately is not an overstatement in this case. But to put things into perspective other markets haven’t fared much better. A few weeks ago, The Northern Miner visited Australia where the Sydney market had lost 40% of its value in a few days.

Activity in Vancouver was slow today and trading volume is now less than two-thirds what it was before the crash. At presstime the market index was up 3.8 points to 1,116.6 and the advance/decline ratio was almost even.

Among the more active traders at presstime was Destiny Resources which was ahead 50 cents to $2.25. This is a Pezim Group company which appears to have made a very important discovery on its Windjammer property 65 miles east of Timmins, Ont. Murray Pezim describes it as a “major situation” which will be expanded with more drilling. Some of the buying is rumored to be coming from his Galveston Explorations but he declined comment on that possibility.

Also moving higher today was Cornucopia Resources which plans a deep drilling program at its Ivanhoe property in the Carlin belt of north-central Nevada. Goldbelt Mines, which recently announced its intention to purchase up to 575,000 of its outstanding shares, picked up 5 cents to $1.10.

There were winners and losers over our report period with the latter dominating. On the winners list was Aber Resources which jumped 26 cents to $2.15. The company has stated it will buy up to 5% of its common shares beginning Nov 10. Norman Resources was the volume leader with a turnover of approximately 1.2 million shares for a 6 cents gain to 32 cents . The company says it’s negotiating property near the Golden Nevada Resources discovery which we assume to be in the Yukon’s Ross River area. Villeneuve Resources, which is joint venturing a gold property with Noranda in Ontario’s Pickle Lake area, climbed 9 cents to 45 cents in good volume. Tundra Gold also traded heavily but it was down 43 cents to $1.75.