Traders closed out the period ending Nov. 2 with some anxiety as Americans went to the polls to elect a new president following a closely contested race. Goosed by a near 10% drop in crude oil prices, the Dow Jones Industrial Index shot up 147.33 points to 10,035.73, and the S&P 500 index rose 19.49 points to 1,130.58.
The biggest percentage gainer among the mining stocks was Australia’s WMC Resources, which had its American depositary receipts rocket US$5.60, or 38%, to US$20.50 in response to a hostile bid from London-listed Xstrata. The latter is offering about US$4.73 in cash per share (or about US$18.92 per ADR, which is worth four common shares). With the ADRs trading well above the bid, investors are clearly banking on a bidding war breaking out.
Sinking US$1.98, to US$10.70, Stillwater Mining reported a third-quarter profit of US$4.4 million, or US5 per diluted share, on revenue of US$144.6 million, compared with a year-earlier net loss of US$1.6 million on revenue of just $66.6 million. The revenue jump is mostly due to the recent sale of mine production stockpiled during the smelter re-bricking in the second quarter.
The top perfoming junior was Capital Gold, which shot up 22% to US33 on modest volume. Based in New York City, Capital owns the El Chanate gold property in Sonora state, Mexico, where there are open-pit reserves of 358,000 oz. gold in 13 million tonnes grading 0.827 gram gold per tonne.
Another big gainer, rising 20% to US$2.63, was U.S. Energy. The Wyoming-based junior and Crested Corp. agreed to sell their the Sheep Mountain uranium mines and properties in south-central Fremont Cty., Wyo., to Vancouver-based Bell Coast Capital in return for cash and shares.
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