Trading Summary (July 31, 2002)

The S&P TSX Composite Index outperformed the other major North American bourses on Wednesday with a 94.24-point or 1.45% rise to 6,605.42 points. The real estate sector led the way gaining more than 3% to 117.92 points. The golds managed to end the session 0.53 of a point higher at 158.73 points while the metal & mining subindex sank 2.29 points to 120.77.

Kinross Gold remained in investors’ sights ending 2 pennies richer at $2.67 with nearly 9 million shares changing hands. Kinross is due to table its second quarter earnings on August 2. The company’s partners in a proposed three-way merger, TVX Gold and Echo Bay Mines, retreated from Tuesday’s significant gains falling 2 apiece. TVX ended at $16.70 and Echo Bay settled at $1.34.

Echo Bay recently posted a wider second-quarter net loss US$1.5 million (or nil per share), compared with a year-ago net loss of US$400,000 (3 per share). Revenue slipped to US$54.6 million from US$63.6 million on lower gold production (129,642 oz. versus 176,284 oz.).

Barrick Gold and Placer Dome were the only other gold miners to crack the TSX’s top ten traded list. Barrick gained 67 to $24.43 while Placer dropped 11 to $13.37. Both saw about 3 million shares traded.

On Wednesday, Aussie gold miner AurionGold rejected Placer’s cash-sweetened hostile bid. With Placer’s shares falling in tandem with gold of late, the Canadian miner cracked and boosted it all-share bid by US$35 per share. The sweetener adds US$84 million in cash to the original bid of 17.5 Placer shares for every 100 AurionGold shares.

The country’s base metal miners were mostly lower. Aur Resources’ shares slipped a quarter or more than 7% to $3.25. On Tuesday, Aur posted lower second-quarter net income of US$2.6 million (2 per diluted share), compared with year-ago net income of US$8 million (7 per share). Revenues between the two periods slipped to US$48.4 million from US$57.3 million.

Alcan was the most traded of the bas metals dropping 11 2 to $44.39 on about 1.5 million shares. Inco saw about 1 million shares cross the floor to fall 80 to $27. Sherritt was one of few to make headway gaining 26 to $5.14. Sherritt’s second-quarter net earnings came in at $24.6 million or 15 per diluted share. A year earlier, the company earned $15 million (or 10 per share). The better results are attributed to higher realized nickel prices.

Western Copper Holdings plummeted 65 or nearly 20% to $2.74. Drilling on the company’s Penasquito base metal property in Mexico confirmed the continuity of mineralization in a 500-by-350-metre zone. All of the holes cut high-grade zones within the broad interval of mineralization. Hole 23 cut 282 metres averaging 0.54 gram gold, 38 grams silver, 0.2% lead and 0.87% zinc.

Vancouver — Investors tested the water of Canada’s junior exchange and managed to get their feet wet. The TSX Venture Exchange rose 7.24 points, or 0.71% and closed the day at 1021.56, on 27.5 million shares.

American Bonanza Gold Mining lost another penny and closed at 13 with 907,000 shares changing hands. The junior recently inked a deal with Mask Resources whereby Mask may acquire up to 49% of American Bonanza’s wholly owned Gold Bar and Pamlico projects, both in Nevada. In order to earn its interest, Mask must make a cash payment of $100,000 and issue 800,000 Mask shares as well as fund exploration expenditures of $3.6 million over a three-year period. American Bonanza retains a 19% back-in right.

Odyssey Resources closed flat at 30 on 711,000 shares. The company has a joint venture with BHP Billiton which will identify, assess and acquire potential world-class copper-gold porphyry targets within the prolific Tethyan orogenic belt in eastern Turkey. The properties that are acquired during the "first phase" of the venture will be funded on a 50:50 basis. BHP Billiton retains an option to increase its interest in each property to 65% by incurring all subsequent expenditures required to complete a Feasibility Study. The major can increase its interest in each property to 75%, by incurring all expenditures required to take it to commercial production.

Pan Asia Mining closed at 4 up 1 on 381,000 shares. The company has the right to acquire 50% contractual interests in four Sino-Foreign joint venture companies located in Shandong Province in China. The joint venture companies own a diamond mine, two diamond exploration properties, and a copper and gold exploration property.