Trading Summary (November 15, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange continued higher on Friday, gaining 86.51 points to make 6,457.42. The golds, paced by renewed terrorism warnings from the Whitehouse, led the market with a 7.26-point or plus-4% rise to 182.84 points.

Leading the gold miners was Kinross Gold, which grabbed a nickel to hit $2.98 on a volume of more than 3.1 million shares. The company’s three-way merger with TVX Gold and Echo Bay Mines is hung up on a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission review. The three are discussing extending the deal’s termination date to no later than January from the current Nov. 30 deadline.

For its part, TVX Gold added another 30 to reach $19.10. The company recently reported third-quarter net earnings of US$1.9 million (or 4 per share) on revenue of US$46.5 million, compared with a year-ago net loss of US$1.1 million on US$40.1 million.

Rounding out the triad, Echo Bay made 4 to finish at $1.55.

Shares of Placer Dome climbed 75 to $15.84. On Friday, Placer extended for the last time its offer for shares of Aussie gold miner AurionGold. The offer now expires on Nov. 21. The company has more than 92% of the company’s shares and will compulsorily acquire the balance.

The base metal miners grew by 1.7 points to 123.79. Takeover target Fording lead the bunch, dropping 9 to $31.91 with just short of 2 million shares on the go. The company says it is entertaining rival offers to the Sherritt Coal Partnership II offer, but that it believe its own plan to convert to an income trust is still the best option. Top persuade shareholders, Fording recently announced a $3-per share sweetener in addition to the one trust unit per share under its proposed conversion.

Those on the plus side were led by Inco, which saw more than 1 million shares trade their way $1.05 higher to $31.30. Rival Falconbridge grabbed 49 to slide in at $15.29.

Canada’s junior exchange ended the week in the black thanks in large part to a late day buying binge. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index added 7.84 points or 0.83%, and closed at 953.64.

New market darling Canadian Royalties recovered from yesterday’s profit taking to close at a new 52-week high of $2.70, up 38 on the day with nearly 1 million shares changing hands. Investors appear to be speculating that the next batch of assay results from the Mesamax northwest grid area on the Expo-Ungava property in northern Quebec will be as good as the last. Hole 18 returned 49.3 metres grading 3.32% nickel, 4% copper, 0.13% cobalt, 1.5 grams platinum, 5.17 grams palladium and 0.26 gram gold from 5.2 metres downhole. A second mineralized zone was encountered 76.7 metres downhole, yielding 1.85% nickel, 2.23% copper, 0.06% cobalt, 0.58 gram platinum, 1.2 grams palladium and 0.04 gram gold over 2.3 metres. Assay results are pending from 30 more holes drilled into the area.

Dumont Nickel gave back 1 to close at 12 on 553,000 shares. The junior completed a management shake up and intents to advance its wholly owned Attawapiskat diamond property adjacent to De Beer’s Victor diamond property in the James Bay Lowlands, Ontario.

Candente Resources continues to trade near recent highs, adding 10 to close at $1.35 on 281,200 shares. The company has acquired a large land position with promising silver values in the Argentine province of Jujuy.