Trading Summary (August 07, 2003)

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s TSX Composite index moved up slightly on Thursday, adding 41.21 points to finish at 7,180.27. But among the few sectors losing ground were both the golds and the base metal miners.

The TSX Gold index fell 0.80 of a point to 182.67, despite a generally firm price for gold; that was fixed at US$351.60 in the London afternoon session, down only US40 on the day. Later trading on the Comex pushed the price up another dollar or so.

Leading the downward charge was Wheaton River Minerals, which fell 15 to $1.89 on a volume of over 9 million shares. Wheaton announced it had arranged a bought-deal equity issue of 38.1 million shares at $2.10, for gross proceeds of $80 million.

Two other stocks that had posted recent gains saw some of that melt away on Thursday: Eldorado Gold was down 20 at $2.95 and Bema Gold 17 at $2.43, both on high volumes. Bema announced a loss of US$4.1 million on US$26.1 million in revenues for the three months ended June 30.

The two biggest miners both swam against the tide; Barrick Gold was up 20 at $24.80, while Placer Dome added a dime to finish at $17.75. There was no trifecta, though, as Kinross Gold was off 14 at $9.32; after the close the company announced a second-quarter loss of US$5.2 million, out of US$152 million in revenue.

The TSX Metals and Mining index was down 0.17 point to 142.44, with most of the component stocks falling. The most conspicuous exception was Ivanhoe Mines, still seeing speculation — either on possible further exploration success at its Oyu Tolgoi copper prospect in Mongolia, or on a takeover bid. Ivanhoe gained 44 on the day to close at $4.79, with 3.8 million shares moving.

Noranda was up 16 at $12.93, and Sherritt International was unchanged at $5, but the rest of the group all fell. LionOre Mining International suffered the biggest drop in percentage terms, sliding 10 to $6.35; the company announced its listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, an inheritance from Dalrymple Resources, with which it completed a merger in June.

Off the index, junior gold producer Queenstake Resources was up 7 to close at 48, and Rio Narcea Gold rose 11 to $2.54 on news that it had received its exploitation licence for the Aguablanca nickel project in northwestern Spain.

Canada’s junior exchange ended the day higher with advancing issues edging out declining stocks by a 295-to-292 margin. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index ended the day 4.95 points, or 0.41% higher and closed at 1,219.60.

Star Resources was the most actively traded junior explorer, gaining 2 to close at 30 on nearly 1.7 million shares traded. The company completed its due diligence review of the Tocantinzinho gold project in Brazil and will proceed with the acquisition. Previous work by Altoro Gold in the late 1990’s outlined a 400-by-200 metre gold-in-soil anomaly with values greater than 1 gram gold per tonne.

Investors continued to bid up shares in Mag Silver ahead of drill results from the Juanicipio silver project in Zacatecas, Mexico. Stock in the junior added 16 to close at $1.18 on 271,847 shares traded.

Orex Ventures ended the day unchanged at 50 on 332,070 shares traded. The junior recently announced plans to acquire interests in certain established mining assets in southern Europe. A confidentiality clause results in no further information until a final agreement has been signed.