American equity markets moved little in the trading period Jan. 10-16, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index falling 2.54 points to 1,287.61 and the Dow 52.03 points to 10,959.87. But with higher commodity prices seen as a factor pushing the markets downward, the resource stocks were mostly buoyant.
Naturally most of the joy was in the gold sector, as bullion prices made a US$20 run to US$561.75 per oz. That was the highest price seen since late January of 1981, and all the big gold producers hit 52-week highs in concert: Newmont Mining, closed on its 52-week high at US$59.87, up US$1.36; AngloGold Ashanti closed at US$55.42, up US$1.77, touching US$55.54 on the way; Gold Fields, up US32 at US$19.65, and Harmony Gold Mining, up US91 at US$14.95, both made new high trades as well.
There was, at that, some profit-taking in the middle tier of the golds. Minas Buenaventura was down US$1.60 at US$29.71 and Lihir Gold fell back US46 to US$36.24. Strong prices for the white goods pushed Stillwater Mining to a new high of US$12.75, but it settled back to US$12.31 for a net fall of US22 over the period.
Bellwether of the U.S. base metals, Phelps Dodge, took a big dip during the period, slipping US$9.96 to US$144.59, having chopped its fourth-quarter earnings forecast by about US$3 to US$1.15. It was the most actively traded of the base metal stocks, with 12.5 million shares on the move, but Companhia Vale do Rio Doce nearly matched PD’s volume with 12.2 million. CVRD, fresh from a refinancing of its U.S.-dollar debt, reached a new high of US$48.14 and closed at US$47.32, up US$1.72. Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, which reported US$935 million in earnings for 2005, closed at US$60.75, up US$2.47, hitting a new high of US$61.50 along the way.
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