Low volume = lackluster junior market

Junior mining stocks were weak on a thin volume of 35.5 million shares during the 5-day report period ended April 25. However, the price of gold offered a glimmer of hope, gaining $7 to end at US$434 per oz. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange Index managed to eke out a 32.88-point gain, or 2%, to finish the trading period at 1741.56.

Six times as many mining companies on the Venture Exchange reached their 52-week lows as achieved yearly highs: 18 versus 111.

Toronto-based Patricia Mines traded the most shares, 4.5 million, tacking on 4 to close at 49, an 8% increase. Partner Richmont Mines is developing an underground decline at the Island gold project near Wawa, Ont.

Vancouver-based Atacama Minerals closed at $1.01, up a penny, on a volume of 3.1 million shares. The Lundin group company recently closed a private placement of $35 million for the purchase of the company that owns the other half of the Aguas Blancas iodine-sulphate-nitrate deposit in Chile. Atacama now owns the deposit outright.

Trading more than 2.8 million shares, Vancouver-based North American Tungsten closed 55%, or 32, higher at 90. The company owns the Cantung tungsten mine in the Yukon and the Mactung deposit in the Northwest Territories, and recently raised $9.2 million after emerging from creditor protection.

Jilbey Gold traded 2.2 million shares and closed up 1, to 51. Drilling at the Bissa Southwest zone included an intercept averaging 25 grams gold per tonne over 3 metres in a broader zone grading 4.55 grams gold over 37 metres.

Moving up in the world, Viceroy Exploration added 70 on a volume exceeding 700,000 shares to close at $3.30 and, in the process, reached a 52-week high. The company has been approved for a listing on the TSX. Viceroy is exploring the Gualcamayo gold project in Argentina.

Vancouver-based Western Prospector gained 60 to close at $3.10 on 840,000 shares. Prompted by a review of historic Russian airborne radiometric surveys, the company expanded its Saddle Hills uranium property to cover prospective near-surface uranium targets southwest and northwest of the Saddle Hills Basin. The company now holds 1,900 sq. km in Mongolia.

Kelowna-based Strathmore Minerals was a value gainer, tacking on 37 to close at $1.95 on more than a million shares. The company is flying an airborne survey over one of its uranium properties in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan.

Bralorne Gold bucked the downward trend and closed at a new 52-week high of $2.75. The company has raised $3 million to explore and develop the Bralorne mine property in southwestern British Columbia.