Bulls battle bears to a draw

Vancouver — Canada’s junior exchange saw little change during the report period ended Oct. 29 as investors appeared unwilling to make any big bets ahead of crucial economic reports due later in the week. The S&P TSX Venture Exchange composite index managed to tack on half a point to finish virtually flat at 905.51.

Pan Asia Mining was the most actively traded junior explorer, ending the week up 2 at 4 with nearly 3.2 million shares changing hands. The company has not maintained the requirements for a tier 1 company listing on the exchange and, as a result, has been reclassified as tier 2. At last report, Pan Asia was exploring for diamonds on four parcels of land in the southern part of the China’s Shandong province.

Spider Resources ended the week at 5, down 1 on just over 3 million shares. Stock in the junior has traded heavily since De Beers announced it had cut massive sulphides in one of its 13 holes drilled on the Spider 3 property in northern Ontario. Failing to hit any kimberlites, De Beers elected to stop work on the property. However, the sulphide hole returned 8 metres grading 1.61% copper, 0.34% zinc and 0.13% lead, plus 9.9 grams silver and 0.13 gram gold per tonne. Included in this section was a half a metre running 7.09% copper, 4.67% zinc, 2.68% lead, 150.6 grams silver and 0.76 gram gold. The property is jointly held with KWG Resources, which is 38.9%-owned by Diagem International Resources. Diagem added 4 to close at 20 on a volume of 845,000 shares.

Shares in National Gold closed flat at 29 on 987,336 shares. The Albert Matter-led company inked a merger deal with fellow junior Alamos Minerals, according to which shareholders of Alamos will receive one share of Alamos Gold for every two shares of Alamos held, while shareholders of National will receive one share of Alamos Gold for every 2.352 shares of National held. The companies are partners on the Salamandra gold property in Mexico. Alamos ended up 10 at 45 on a volume of 238,000 shares.

Surging to a new 52-week high, Cardero Resources added 33 to close at $1.30 on 704,228 shares. Last month, the company acquired the Olaroz silver project, some 230 km from the city of San Salvador de Jujuy in northwestern Argentina. The project hosts the La Providencia silver deposit and the area surrounding it.

Investors snapped up shares in Wolfden Resources following news that drilling on its wholly owned High Lake property in the Northwest Territories had intersected high-grade copper mineralization at depth and down-plunge in the B zone. Diamond drilling in 2002 intersected semi-massive and massive sulphide mineralization over 100 metres below the limits of last year’s program. Wolfden ended at 75, up 16, as 886,935 shares crossed the floor.

Please Note: Owing to technical problems at our data source, this week’s stock tables represent trading only on Tuesday, Oct. 29. The “Change” column is the change from the close on Oct. 28. We apologize for any inconvenience.