Trading Summary (August 14, 2002)

Toronto stocks finished in the black on Wednesday, thanks to a late-afternoon rally. The tech stocks led the way gaining 3.25%. The golds went the other way falling 3.3% to 166.14 points. The metals & minerals sector slipped 0.76 of a point to 115.43 points. When the dust settled, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was 21.09 points higher at $6,550.07 points.

Rio Narcea Gold Mines shot onto the TSX’s top ten traded list as the nation’s busiest miner grabbing a penny to make $1.55 on the backs of more than 5.5 million shares. The company recently wrapped up a positive bankable feasibility study of its advanced Aguablanca nickel-copper project in southern Spain, and is now awarding engineering contracts and arranging project financing.

Kinross Gold dropped the same to $2.84 on 4.1 million shares and Placer Dome fell 31 to $13.69 on 3.8 million to place fifth and sixth, respectively. Most of the remaining gold issues put in similar losses.

In the lower ranks, Northern Orion stood out advancing 2.5 to a dime. On Tuesday, the company closed a non-brokered private placement of 20 million units priced at a dime apiece. One unit comprises one share plus a purchase warrant (exercisable for 13 for two years).

Aluminum giant Alcan outpaced the rest of the base metal miners with nearly 2 million shares on the go. The stock dropped $1 to $42.15. Inco fell 40 to $25.70, Falconbridge shed 15 to $16.50, and Teck Cominco’s B shares slipped a nickel to $10.70.

Western Copper Holdings climbed 6 to $2.41. On Wednesday, the company announced that drilling has resumed on its Penasquito silver-gold-lead-zinc property in Zacatecas State, Mexico. The 7,000-meter program is following up on a similar-size program that outlined a 500-by-350-metre zone of continuous mineralization. All of the holes intersected high-grade zones within the broad interval of mineralization. Mineralization occurs in veins, stockworks and disseminations.

The TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 10.14 points, or 1.02%, and closed the day at 1014.94 with 24.5 million shares traded.

ECU Silver Mining remained flat at 5 with 1.4 million shares traded. The company recently inked a deal with Trustyard Capital for a private placement of $300,000. ECU Silver owns the Velardena silver mine in central Mexico which has a resource of 2.4 million tonnes grading 269 grams silver and 2.80 grams gold per tonne.

Diagem International Resources remained steady at 20 with 461,000 shares traded. Diagem’s bulk testing program on its 108 property in Brazil on test pit #7 yielded 888 diamonds weighing 75.45 carats, with sizes up to 2.05 carats. Results from test pits 8 and 9 are expected shortly.

Marum Resources closed at 10, up 2 on 312,000 shares. The junior and its joint venture partner Ressources Appalaches await assay results from hole F-21 on the B20 property near Port Cartier, Quebec. Hole F-21 intersected numerous mineralized horizons within a 36 metre disseminated sulphide zone, from 39 to 75 metres. A subsequent 25 metre interval, from 75 to 100 metres, contains well disseminated sulphide mineralization.