Tough times for Venture in Nov. 21-25 period

Vancouver – The November 21-25 trading period was bleak on the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index, with the index dropping every day to end down 102.53 points at 1,505.14 points. Volume was also noticeably down at an average of 74 million shares traded daily, though that was largely related to the US Thanksgiving holiday and corresponding market closure.

Recently-listed Banks Island Gold climbed strongly, up 17¢ or 52% after releasing high-grade drill intercepts from the Tel zone at its Yellow Giant gold property in B.C. Hole 11-07 hit of 1.7 metres carrying 18.8 grams gold per tonne and 158 grams silver per tonne from 41 metres downhole, and hole 11-05 cut 0.2 metre averaging 117 grams gold and 83 grams silver from 33 metres depth, with both reported as true widths and containing lead and zinc. The company also released a preliminary economic assessment for a small-scale underground mine at the project that established a pretax NPV of $26.4 million and an IRR of 414%, with payback in 1.2 months.

Anfield Nickel was one of the few stocks that managed to make significant value gains, climbing 49¢ to $6 for a new 52-week high. The gains came despite the company releasing no news and the price of nickel having steadily eroded lately. Nickel, ending the period at US$7.70 per lb., was trading at arouedUS$9 per lb. at the end of October and upwards of US$13 per lb. in late February. Anfield is advancing its Mayaniquel project in Guatemala, which has an NPV of US$606-million based on an 8% discount and US$8.25 per lb. nickel.

Cap-Ex Ventures capped off an impressive recovery that has seen its share price climb from 25¢ in early October to a high of $1.25 in the period before ending at $1.05. The company has recently reported numerous drill results from its Block 103 iron ore discovery 30 km northwest of Schefferville, Quebec. Results include 159 metres grading 31.2% iron and 127 metres averaging 29.6% iron, while it reports an average true width of 110 metres of magnetite mineralization in the 17 holes drilled so far. After listing in January, the company hit a 52-week high of $1.62 in April and then fell precipitously to its 52-week low in October.

Shear Diamonds went from 14¢ to 23¢ with 4 million shares traded on no apparent news. The Nunavut-focused diamond explorer is working to revive the past-producing Jericho diamond mine as well as advance its Churchill and Slave Lake projects. In early October the company announced it recovered 200.85 carats from 22.1 wet tonnes of tailings at Jericho in initial test mining. The company’s share price has declined fairly steadily from 95¢ last December to a 52-week low of 12¢ in November.

NWM Mining saw a spike in activity to become the most traded stock on the index with 22 million shares traded. The activity came despite the company releasing no news and accompanied it hitting a 52-week low of 8¢. The company recently issued 9.5 million bonus shares to an arm’s-length lender related to a new US$5-million revolving credit facility and extensions of the maturity date on US$14.5-million in promissory notes.