Trading Summary (July 23, 2003)

The Toronto Stock Exchange saw its TSX Composite index rise 46.16 points on Wednesday, closing at 7,231.34. It was a good day for the miners, as the TSX Gold index — up 7.06 points at 180.61 — and the TSX Metals and Mining index — up 3.66 at 139.01 — led all the other sectors of the market.

For the golds, a jump in the bullion price near midday provided the push. The London afternoon fix was US$354.75 per oz., but later trading saw the price move up to US$359 by the close of the day in New York. Fund buying and a move through technical resistance at US$355 drew the price up in the second half of the day.

The prospect of a strike at the major South African mines may also have been working on the bullion market. On Tuesday the National Union of Mineworkers rejected a settlement offer from AngloGold that would have increased wages by 9.5%, and put the company back on its list of potential strike targets, with Harmony Gold and South Deep.

The stocks on the gold index were all higher, and trading was unusually heavy. The volume leader was silver producer Wheaton River Minerals, which added a dime to close at $1.85 on a volume of 6.5 million shares. Close behind was Kinross Gold, with 6.2 million shares moving; Kinross was up a quarter at $9.13. Another heavily traded gold was Bema Gold, which added 10 to end the day at $2.19.

Placer Dome announced it had completed its buyout of East African Gold Mines for US$252 million. Placer closed at $17.70, up 76, on a volume of 1.9 million shares.

Many of the strong gains came in the middle tier of the golds: Meridian Gold was up 96 at $17.55, Goldcorp up 86 at $17.18, Agnico Eagle Mines up 79 at $16.36, and Iamgold up 35 at $7.30.

Off the index, junior producer Cambior added 26 to close at $2.49 on a volume of 2.7 million shares. After the market closed, Cambior announced new results from exploration drilling at its Westwood project, east of the Doyon mine in Quebec. Deep drill holes about 2 km east of the Doyon workings appear to have intersected mineralized zones that correlate with Doyon’s zones 1 and 2. The best intersection ran 34.3 grams gold per tonne over 5 metres.

Another big winner among the junior gold miners was Miramar Mining, which picked up 25 to close at $2.25. Miramar announced that drilling at its Boston deposit in western Nunavut had intersected new gold mineralization at about 1,000 metres depth some 450 metres south of the known gold zones.

The news was good on the base metal side, too. The biggest percentage gain went to Aur Resources, which was up 24 at $3.70. Inco, another big gainer, closed at $31.76, up $1.67, reporting earnings of US$65 million on revenues of US$599 million in the second quarter of 2002.

Volume champ was Ivanhoe Mines, which was up a dime at $3.70 as over 4 million shares crossed the floor. Ivanhoe is up 30, and 11.2 million shares have moved, in the three days of trading since Monday, when the company announced a new resource estimate from the Turquoise Hill copper deposit in south-central Mongolia.

Canada’s junior exchange rallied for a third straight day as a surge in the price of bullion drove investors back into speculative gold issues. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index gained 5.52 points, or 0.49% and closed at 1,134.16.

Cardero Resources was the most activley traded issue climbing 4 to close at 88 on 1.3 million shares traded. The company got a boost from news that the latest results from the Olaroz silver project in northwestern Argentina. The best values came from hole 6A, which yielded 13.5 metres grading 556.5 grams silver per tonne.

Investors bid up shares in American Bonanza Gold Mines. The junior, which is currently drilling the Gold Bar property in Nevada, as well as the Copperstone project in Arizona, added 2 to close at 30 on 427,744 shares.

Another mover, Alamos Gold added 6 to close at $1.17 on 193,883 shares traded. The junior is looking to develop the Salamandra gold property in Mexico.