U.S. equities down yet again, May 16-20

Uncertainty about the outcome of the euro zone’s debt problems continued to weigh heavily on U.S. equity markets during the May 16-20 trading week. The week ended with Fitch ratings agency’s downgrade of Greece. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 83.71 points or 0.67% to finish at 12,512.04, while the S&P 500 index dropped 4.5 points or 0.34% to 1,333.27. The Philadelphia Gold and Silver index edged up 4.03 points or 2.06% to 199.29.

Drill results at Allied Nevada Gold‘s Hasbrouck project in Nevada helped push up the company’s shares by US$2.59 to US$34.82. Delineation drilling in the Saddle Zone included 85 metres of 3.0 grams gold and 102.9 grams silver within a larger intercept of 188 metres grading 1.9 grams gold and 62.3 grams silver. Hasbrouck is about 80 km south of the Round Mountain open-pit mine, a joint venture between Kinross Gold and Barrick Gold. In the first quarter, Allied Nevada increased its land position south of the current known resource from about 2 sq km to about 27 sq. km to encompass geophysical anomalies identified through recent gravity surveying, zones of epithermal alteration and sites of historical mining and drilling is expected to start there in the second half of the year.  

Yanzhou Coal moved up US$2.27 to US$38.46 per share in the wake of media reports it has bid for Australia’s Whitehaven Coal. Earlier this month, China’s state-owned newspaper, The China Daily, wrote that Yanzhou had offered US$3.38 billion for Whitehaven. In 2009 Yanzhou acquired Australia’s Felix Resources for US$3.2 billion.

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, meanwhile, was the most actively traded stock, with 133 million shares changing hands. It closed the week up 11¢ at US$48.38 on no news. In late April Freeport said it expects consolidated sales from its mines this year will reach about 3.9 billion pounds of copper, 1.6 million ounces of gold and 73 million pounds of molybdenum.

Finally, Teck, Royal Gold, Buenaventura and Alliance Resource Partners topped the list of value gains, all on no news. Teck advanced US$3.64 per share to US$50, while Royal Gold climbed US$3.00 to US$59.88. Buenaventura advanced by US$2.66 to US$41.07 per share. In late April, Peru’s largest publicly-traded precious metals mining company reported a 40% year-on-year increase in net income to US$218.3 million in the first quarter, due mainly to a 171% increase in operating income. Diversified coal miner Alliance Resource Partners gained US$2.59 to US$72.39. It reported record first quarter results, with revenues climbing to US$423.3 million, up 11.2% compared to the same quarter a year ago, on higher coal sales and record pricing.