TSX higher on stronger resource prices

While rising oil prices were being blamed south of the border for weaker markets, thanks to its heavy resource exposure the TSX Composite Index managed to climb 187 points to finish the holiday shortened Feb. 21-24 period at 12,725.77 points.

The strength came as oil prices rallied on fears that Israel could go to war with Iran over the latter country’s nuclear program. The price for light sweet crude oil was up roughly US$5.00 to US$109.77 per barrel.

Fears of a confrontation had the gold as a “safe haven” trade back on and the yellow metal’s price rose almost US$50.00 to finish at US$1.776.40 per oz. Gold miner’s partook in the strength in the underlying as evidenced by the Global Gold Index moving up 9 points to finish at 385.67 points.

Diversified miners also showed resilience as the Capped Metals & Mining clawed out a 36 points grain and reached the 1,208.67 level as the prices for copper, aluminum, nickel, tin, lead and zinc were all stronger.

Golden Predator was the period’s hottest mining stock as the junior with gold assets in the Yukon saw its share price gain 31% to wind up at 80¢. While Brewery Creek remains the company’s flagship project, the surge in share price came after announcing results from its Grew Creek project, which returned a highlight assay of 68 metres grading 5.96 grams gold and 24.1 grams silver. The result came out of what is known as the Carlos zone and of the 19 holes drilled in the area, Golden Predator said 12 of them returned notable intersection of gold mineralization.

A profitable fourth quarter helped lift Yamana Gold’s market cap. The company’s shares were up $1.32 to $17.72 after reporting a US$89.5-million profit for the fourth quarter. And while that figure was 28% less than the profits from a year ago, the market was in a forgiving mood given that the decrease came from a one-time, non-cash US$81-million impairment loss on investments. Yamana was able to generate record operating earnings of US$297 million in the quarter thanks to higher gold and silver prices. Those higher prices offset a 3% reduction in gold production for the period.

Banro announced it had sealed the deal on a large scale financing that will raise US$175 million for company coffers. The capital is being raised via a combination of debt and equity, with the equity portion coming in the form of a warrant. The debt is being issued at an interest rate of 10% and the company says it will put the new capital towards developing its Namoya gold project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Banro shares were up 21% to $5.68 for the period.

Atna Resources shares reached their highest level in a year as the company’s shares gained 23% to finish the period at $1.45. The move came ahead of its release of a resource estimate for its Reward Gold Project in Nevada. The update boosted measured and indicated resources by 29% as they now stand at 16.4 million tonnes grading 0.69 grams gold for 362,600 oz. of gold.