Technology sector pulls down CDNX

A 6.5% drop in the technology sector, combined with a 1.6% slide in the mining index, pulled the Canadian Venture Exchange down during the holiday-shortened report period ended Oct. 10. The CDNX composite index was off 92.12 points, or 2.6%, at 3,413.56. The mining index shed 78.15 points to end the week at 4,841.66.

Houston Lake Mining reached a 52-week high of $1.30 before falling back to 81 for a 4 loss following the release of assay results for the first three holes of a 7-hole drill program on its Tib Lake platinum-palladium property in northwestern Ontario. Hole 15, the first hole in the program, was drilled just north of the Kuhner occurrence, cutting 11 metres of 0.47 gram platinum group elements (PGE). Hole 16, targeted the downward extension of the Kuhner occurrence, where a 1995 hole cut 18.4 metres of 1.68 grams per tonne of combined platinum, palladium and gold. Drilled 35 metres downdip of the 1995 hole, no. 16 intersected 22 metres of 1.45 grams PGE, 0.17% nickel and 0.15% copper. A third hole, which tested a broad zone of sulphidized heterogeneous gabbro/gabbro breccia, returned no significant results. The Tib property is 14.5 km northwest of Lac Des les mine.

Mighty Beaut Minerals, whose primary asset is the Celestial nickel laterite project on the Palawan Island in the Philippines, was up 11 at 31. Test-pitting has outlined a resource of 77.2 million tonnes grading 1.29% nickel and 0.09% cobalt. The company has signed confidentiality agreements with international mining/refining companies. A field sampling program was undertaken to determine the specific gravity of the in situ material.

Shares in Philex Gold continued to be traded heavily as investors positioned themselves ahead of new assay results from the Boyungan copper-gold porphyry prospect on the northeastern tip of the Philippine island of Mindanao. The ailing gold producer ended the period down 23 at $1.42. In mid-September, Philex reported a 365-metre intercept averaging 0.81% copper and 1.9 grams gold, starting at a down-hole depth of 57 metres in hole 6. The prospect occurs on the Surigao joint venture with Anglo-American, in which the major has the right to earn up to a 70% interest.

Diagem International Resource ended at 46, off 4, on news it had discovered two new kimberlite bodies by auger sampling on its Rio Tinto joint-venture properties in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state.

TNR Resources tacked on 5 to close at 28. The junior is involved in a joint-venture exploration program with Barrick Gold in the Pascua-Veladero region of Argentina.

An update on the 701 diamond mine project, in China, did little for Pan Asia Mining, which slipped 2 to finish at 20.

Kalahari Resources was off 3 at 26, as investors await further news from the MacKay Lake property in the Northwest Territories, where SouthernEra Resources is drilling for the extension of the Snap Lake kimberlite dyke.