CDNX starts fourth quarter on downtrend

Canada’s junior exchange posted mixed results as the mining and oil and gas indices ended the week in positive territory, while the tech index slipped into the red. The Canadian Venture Exchange composite index dropped 29.25 points, or 0.8%, to finish the week ended Oct. 3, at 3,505.68. The mining index popped up 18.08 points, or 0.3%, to close at 4,919.81.

New market darling Philex Gold, jumped 20 and closed at $1.65 on heavy trading. Investors appear to be speculating that the Boyugnan prospect hosts a formidable porphyry copper deposit. The stock has been volatile since the company announced that hole 6 at the Philippine prospect in Surigao returned 365 metres grading 0.81% copper and 1.9 grams gold per tonne.

Riding on the back of Philex’s hot hole, Mindoro Resource climbed 4 to end the week at 30. The Edmonton-based company has three copper-gold properties within 20 km of the Boyugnan prospect, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The properties — Tapian San Francisco, Tapian Main and Agata — all host gold-copper prospects.

Gabriel Resources closed at $3.49, up 59, with 2.4 million shares changing hands. The company is working on a feasibility study for its Rosia Montana gold property in Romania. On Sept. 29, the shares of the company began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol gbu.

Rhonda Mining tacked on 21 and ended the week at $1.10, with 1.4 million shares crossing the floor. Shares in the junior explorer surged to a new 52-week high on news that the Knife kimberlite pipe in Nunavut contains macrodiamonds. A 75-kg sample yielded 98 diamonds, including six macrodiamonds. Its joint-venture partner, De Beers Consolidated Mines, discovered the pipe earlier this year.

Calgary-based Tiberon Minerals soared 53 to end the week at $2.40, with 1.8 million shares traded. Investors have bid up the share price in anticipation of favourable drill results from a 1,500-metre program at the Nui Phao tungsten-bismuth-copper-gold property in northern Vietnam.

Charles Fipke-led Cantex Mine Development popped back on to investors’ radar screen after the junior announced a new geochemical anomaly on its Sadah gold prospect. Assay results have yielded up to 3,000 parts per billion gold. Toronto-listed Falconbridge, the junior’s partner at the nearby Suwar massive-sulphide project, is moving ahead with an electromagnetic survey. Cantex closed at 30, up 2 on 1.1 million shares.

Marum Resources tacked on 4 and closed at 21 with 1 million shares traded. The junior believes it has discovered an additional 15 kimberlite dykes on its 50%-owned Torngat properties in northern Quebec, bringing the total to 27. The company has sampled 25 of the dykes for petrographic and microprobe analysis for rock-type classification.

Barramundi Gold closed at 7, up 2 on just over 1 million shares. The junior recently announced plans to acquire the high-grade Rescue gold mine, near Warren, Idaho, including the existing mill and mining equipment and the block of nine claims upon which the mine is situated. The company has also optioned three of its five exploration permits on its Wandoo property, in North Queensland, to Australian-listed Kagara Zinc.

Kalahari Resources closed at 29, up 2, with 950,000 shares crossing the floor. The junior expects the drill to start turning on the Caprock-Northside-Milligan-Sheep and San Juan copper porphyry claims in New Mexico by the first week of October. Kalahari plans to drill four holes into large geophysical and geochemical targets. Meanwhile, Toronto-listed SouthernEra Resources, Kalahari’s partner at Mackay Lake in the Northwest territories, started drilling for a possible extension of the Snap Lake kimberlite system.

Vital Pacific Resources ended the day at 9, up 1 on 888,000 shares. The junior is assessing its four platinum-palladium properties in Ontario’s Sudbury district. The work entails compiling data and surface sampling.