Oil-fired TSX breaks 10,000

Rising prices for crude oil pushed the Toronto Stock Exchange composite index over 10,000 during the report period June 14-20. The composite finished just shy of that mark, at 9,998.11, up 158.17 points over the five trading days.

The base metals outpaced the broader market, rising 8.4 points to 307.43. The big mover was Teck Cominco, whose B-series shares vaulted $2.38, to $44.32, on a volume of 7.2 million. Teck’s thinly traded A-series multiple-voting shares ran up $1.21, to $43.87.

Copper prices shot up during the period, with the London official price as high as US$3,670 per tonne on June 17, and the copper-sensitive stocks, with one exception, were carried along: Noranda added 83 to finish at $22.07; Falconbridge, 33 to finish at $39.18; First Quantum Minerals, 15 to $23.50; and Inmet Mining, $1.30 to finish at $17. Only Aur Resources fell back, closing a nickel lower at $7.10.

Speaking of nickel, its price came off US$440 from its close in the previous period, settling at US$16,460 per tonne (US$7.47 per lb.) in Monday’s ring. Inco still climbed 73, to $49.73, Sherritt International tacked on 77 to finish at $9.92, FNX Mining added 16 to close at $12, and LionOre Mining International rose 21 to end the period at $6.70.

Gold bullion was up almost US$17, with the London afternoon fix at US$439.35 per oz., its highest point since March. The gold equities didn’t match that rise; the TSX gold index was up only 0.8% to 197.05. The big golds moved higher, with Barrick Gold up 50 at $30, Placer Dome up 17 at $18.81, and Goldcorp 85 higher at $19.26. There was weakness in the mid-tiers, though: Meridian Gold fell 27 to $22.08, Agnico-Eagle Mines was off 18 at $15.46, and Glamis Gold finished at $20, down 35.

Bema Gold was the most actively traded of the gold equities, adding 6 to close at $2.84 with 15.9 million shares riding the tape. Bema’s feasibility study on the Kupol gold project in far-eastern Russia, now two weeks old, said the project could produce half a million ounces of gold and 6 million oz. silver at US$88 per oz. gold, with a capital cost of US$364 million.

Kinross Gold backed up 2 to $7.17, while uncertainty continued over its 2003 and 2004 books. There is a mounting short position in Kinross, which rose about 3 million in the first half of June, to 27 million shares.

Off the gold index, narrow-vein miner River Gold Mines fell a quarter to $1.10 and Aurizon Mines shed 12 to close at $1.22, but Richmont Mines added 43 to end up at $5.70. Richmont reached an agreement to place 3.2 million shares at $4.90, raising $15.9 million. Two off-index golds were actively traded, Yamana Gold rising a nickel to $4.54 on 9.8 million shares and Queenstake Resources unchanged at 28 with 6.8 million shares changing hands.

Tahera Diamond was the big trader, seeing 6.5 million shares move. Despite the volume, it was unchanged at 39.5.

Profit-taking hit some of the juniors: Virginia Gold, off its recent intersections at the lonore project in the James Bay region of Quebec, fell 28 to $6.49, Lundin Mining, with a discovery last month at its Copperstone property in northern Sweden, slid 70 to $10.50, and Guyana Goldfields, which hit a slug of high-grade mineralization at its Aurora property in Guyana at the end of May, came off 29 to $2.63.

On thin trading, Graham Dickson’s YGC Resources was 16 better at 83. The company is drilling the Ketza River gold property, a former producer in the Yukon. Scandinavian Gold, which announced successful metallurgical test results from its Keivitsa nickel- copper project in northern Finland, rose 34 to close at 95 on just over 40,000 shares.