Trading Summary (August 26, 2002)

A 4.74% rise in the gold stocks powered Toronto stocks to a 6.07-point or 1.48% gain on Monday. The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the trading session at 6,697.93 points. The golds finished the day at 169.59 points, paced by a US$3.30 per oz. gain by gold to US$309.50 per oz. in New York.

No surprise, gold miners were heavily traded. Geomaque Explorations jumped to the head of the class climbing out of the red late in the day to end unchanged at 8.5 with nearly 12 million shares on the go. On Monday, Geomaque announced plans to raise $1 million via a private placement of about 14.8 million shares at 6.7 apiece. The deal also allows Haywood securities to place another $500,000 worth of shares on the same terms.

Other gold miners making the TSX’s top traded list were: Placer Dome, plus 45 to $14.35 on about 4 million shares; Barrick Gold, 43 higher at $23.62; South American Gold & Copper, unchanged at 4 on more than 2.2 million shares; Northern Orion Explorations, which added a penny to make 7; and Kinross Gold, which finished just outside the top ten volume leaders, up 16 at $2.71 on more than 1.1 million shares.

Even Claude Resources was able to grab 8 or 6.25% to make $1.36 after posting a first-half loss of $3 million (or 7 per basic and diluted share) on revenue $10.7 million, compared with a year-ago loss of $1.2 million (3 per share) on revenue of $15.7 million.

The base metal miners were quieter gaining just 0.32 of a point to 122.68 points. Alcan was the most active edging up 3 pennies to $44.59 on just more than 647,000 shares. Others on the rise were Inco, up 58 to $29.86; Sherritt International, plus 4 to $4.84; Boliden, a dime richer at $3.60; and Cameco, which scraped together 37 to hit $31.05.

The TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 0.02 points, or 0.0%, and closed the day at 1008.83 with 21.2 million shares traded.

Bishop Resources tacked on 4 and closed at 7 on 1.7 million shares. The company holds a 100% interest in the 935-acre Gordon Lake gold property, 50 miles northeast of Yellowknife.

Starfield Resources added 6 to its value and closed at 47 on 346,000 shares. The company is currently drilling its wholly owned Ferguson Lake nickel, copper, cobalt, PGM property in Nunavut.

ECU Silver Mining sat still at a nickel and traded 251,793 shares. 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.