STOCK MARKETS — Toronto rebounds from week-long slide

Following a disastrous five days, the Toronto Stock Exchange bounced back on Dec. 18 and 19, carrying the TSE 300 composite index to 5,844.30, a gain of 134.10 points. The market’s 116.66-point gain on Dec. 19 was the largest in a single day since the buying frenzy that followed the October 1987 crash.

The strong performance followed a number of positive reports on the general state of the economy, including an increase in retail sales. A lower trade surplus (pulled down by the strike at General Motors of Canada in November) may also have led investors to think the present low interest rates would hold.

Both trading days had heavy volumes (94.3 million and 108.8 million shares), with the conglomerates and financial-services sectors leading the market.

Both the golds and the base metals recovered as well.

The Canadian dollar fell fractionally over the two trading days, for a noon rate of US73.12 cents on Dec. 20. The Loony was firmly in the middle of the pack among the major Western currencies, with the pound and yen falling back from the stratosphere, and the mark and French franc recovering.

Gold traded in a narrow range on the London bullion market, with the Dec. 20 morning fix at US$369.20 per oz., up 20 cents for the two days. Silver, at US$4.88, was 3 cents higher and platinum was up 50 cents to $371.50.

The TSE gold and precious minerals sub-index was 164.72 points higher at 11,339.67. Its 1.5% gain didn’t match the broad market, but the gold index takes what it can get these days.

Bre-X Minerals closed at $20.90, up $1.10 over the report period. By presstime, it had added another $1.10 to close at $22. Barrick Gold was up $1.60 over the same five days, closing at $41.10. It had fallen to $39.75 by presstime.

Bre-X’s president, David Walsh, announced that “shareholders will be pleased” with the agreement the company negotiated with Barrick for the Busang property in Indonesia. Reports say the Indonesian government will hold 10% of the Busang property, Barrick 67.5%, and Bre-X, 20.25%. Bre-X’s Indonesian partner, Askatindo Karya Mineral, will hold 2.25%.

That meant that Minorca Resources still had an option to earn 70% of Askatindo’s interest in Busang, for a net 1.575% interest in the property.

Minorca, however, was 25 cents lower at $2.80.

Base metals were generally stronger, with nickel up 6 cents to US$2.99 per lb. and copper adding 4 cents to finish at US$1.02 in the London Metal Exchange’s Dec. 20 morning sessions. Lead was up 1 cents, and zinc was unchanged.

Toronto metals and minerals stocks travelled upward with the rest of the market to finish at 5,206.22, up 111.47 points. Inco, which fell 45 cents to close at $44.15, was the busiest, with 3.6 million shares traded between Dec.

13 and 19. Inco rebounded $1.50 from its $42.65 close on Dec. 17.

For Dec. 18 and 19, the story was similar with Cameco, which was up 95 cents to finish at $54.35. Noranda was up 75 cents over those two days to close at $29.95.

Some miners continued to slide over Dec. 18 and 19. Falconbridge, fittingly, gave up a nickel to close at $29.30, Cominco, punished heavily in last week’s free fall, fell another dime to $31.50, and Rio Algom was 55 cents lower at $29.75.

Among the juniors, Montreal-listed Altavista Mines finished at 89 cents, up 29 cents from the previous week. Altavista announced that it had mobilized a second drill to its Santa Anna property near La Sarre, Que., and had staked an additional 29 claims adjoining its property.

On the Toronto junior board, Golden Rule Resources was up $1.55 to close at $5.45. With Vancouver-listed affiliate Hixon Gold Resources, the company is exploring three concessions in Ghana. Its main effort concentrated on the Stenpad concession, where it has been sampling large surface trenches between two high-grade surface showings. The samples are still in the laboratory but the company has identified quartz veining and arsenopyrite in the trenches.