Rebounding commodities aided the junior-mining dominated S&P-TSX Venture Composite Index in closing out the Nov. 3-9 trading period at 1631.05, up almost 33 points from last week’s close. Average daily trading volumes over the session were just below 38 million shares.
Gold prices closed out the week with authority, reaching US$435 per oz. on the New York spot market, a 16-year high, up more US$14 from the previous week’s close.
The divisive U.S. presidential election, tensions in the Middle East and continued strength in the euro, all factored in bullion’s rise.
Silver saw a new 7-month high, closing out the session at US$7.50 per oz., up 48 over the week. Platinum surged over the week, gaining as much as US$25 before closing at US$848 per oz. Palladium closed out the trading period at US$213 per oz., up roughly US$5 from last week’s close.
Copper saw significant gains, closing at US$1.40 per lb., up a nickel from the previous week.
A large gap remains between new low and highs on the junior mining board, similar to the previous week. Some 90 Venture-Exchange-listed explorers dropped to new yearly lows over the trading period, compared with 27 companies setting new 52-week highs.
Top honours on the volume chart went to Spider Resources, which saw 13.7 million shares traded over the week. Ongoing exploration drilling at its McFaulds Lake VMS project in the James Bay Lowlands of northern Ontario, with partner KWG Resources, returned an 18.8-metre intercept grading 8% copper. The McFaulds Lake discovery has seen almost 14,000 metres drilled in 57 holes, resulting in two main occurrences, McFaulds No. 1 and 3. Spider closed out the week at 16.5 per share, up 3 or 22%.
The second most active trader OntZinc saw volume of 7.7 million shares on the session and gained two pennies to close at 16 per share. The company has garnered investor interest with its proposed purchase of Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting from Anglo American for $325 million. The deal would see OntZinc become a significant Manitoba-based copper-zinc producer.
Tyler Resources traded almost 4 million shares on the week, closing up a dime at 43 per share. The company has mobilized a drill to its Bahuerachi porphyry copper-gold project in Chihuahua State, Mexico. The planned second phase of drilling will follow-up results from the Spring-2004 program that outlined the continuous nature of the porphyry mineralization and associated breccia-skarn bodies and supergene enrichment blanket. Initial drilling has shown the breccia unit having an average width of 24 metres with a weighted average grade of 2.3% copper in drill sections.
Arizona Star Resource led the Venture-Board value gainers, by moving up $1.20 per share, or 27%, to close at $5.60. The issue saw 504,000 shares change hands on the week. In a surprise manoeuvre at the company’s recent AGM, a shareholder’s group, possibly connected with a Barbados-based bank, planned to replace the company’s board and change management. Arizona Star adjourned the meeting until mid-December to allow all shareholders time to review the proposal. The company is partnered with Placer Dome and Bema Gold on the 1 billion-tonne Cerro Casale copper-gold project in northern Chile.
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