Venture hit by commodities sell-off in May 2-6 period

Vancouver – A big commodities sell-off, including the biggest drop in silver futures in thirty years, led to a rough May 2 to 6 period on the S&P TSX Venture Exchange. The board dropped 204.34 points in the first four days before making a moderate recovery of 40.81 points to end at 2,088.60 points, erasing any gains since mid-December. The downward trend led to 110 Venture-listed companies hitting 52-week lows and only 29 hitting 52-week highs.

 With the overall drop on the board no companies saw big value gains. Great Quest Metals saw the biggest price jump, up 22¢ to $2.91. The Mali-focused phosphate and gold explorer did not, however, release news in the period and the gains put it back in line with its mid-April price. Great Quest controls the 737-sq.-km Tilemsi phosphate project in eastern Mali and the Sanoukou gold project that sits immediately south of the Djambaye II zone, which it sold to Avion Gold in late 2009. The company recently initiated a 2,500-metre drill program at Sanoukou.

Elsewhere in fertilizer news, re-branded Mesa Exploration released a technical report on it three potash projects in Utah. The report stated that there is a very large tonnage of potash in several beds, established through at least 32 oil and gas test wells. Mesa’s share price climbed 20¢ on the news for the second-best value gains of the period, ending at 92¢. The company changed its name from Mesa Uranium to Mesa Exploration at the end of March to reflect its recently-acquired potash and lithium projects.

Hunt Mining was one of the few stand-outs during the period, climbing 13¢ for a 39.4% gain and ending at 46¢ on 4.6 million shares traded. The climb followed the company’s release of drill results from its La Josefina gold project in Argentina’s Santa Cruz province. Highlights included 19.5 metres grading 18.83 grams gold per tonne, 3.5 metres averaging 4.83 grams gold, 7 metres carrying 3.01 grams gold and 1 metre grading 40.97 grams gold. The intercepts were all estimated at true widths and also contained varying values of silver, copper, lead and zinc.

Of the ten most traded stocks on the Venture, IBC Advanced Alloys was the only one that did not end into the red. Instead, the company had a 4¢ up-down swing to end flat at 20¢ after rounding, with 10.5 million shares traded. IBC is focused on exploration for and development of beryllium aluminum alloys, which have a very high melting point and are used as a shield in nuclear reactors, among other applications. The company has beryllium projects in Utah and Colorado and four manufacturing plants in the United States.

In Yukon news, Ethos Capital ended up 15¢ at $1.32 after announcing it had closed two private placements that totalled almost $15 million.  The company plans to put the money into exploration programs at its gold projects in the Yukon and its silver projects in Mexico. Ethos is working to advance, among other properties, the Hen, Wolf, Bridge and Betty properties in the White Gold district.