Trading Summary (August 23, 2001)

There was mostly sideways movement on Thursday as Wednesday’s broad, post-Fed-cut rally fizzled in the face of continued weak earnings results coming out of America’s retail sector.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 0.47% to 10228.32 points, the Nasdaq composite index eased off 0.92% to 1842.97 and the S&P 500 index declined 0.28% to 1162.09 points as investors watched in vain for some kind of leadership to appear.

North of the border, the pattern was the same. The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 index shot up in the last few minutes of the day to finish slightly on the positive side by 0.05% to 7542.40 points, as seven advancing subindices matched seven decliners.

As gold and silver traded tightly throughout the day around US$275 and US$4.19 per oz., respectively, the gold and precious minerals subindex advanced 0.17% to 4895.94 points. Barrick Gold rose 16 to $25.86, Placer Dome was up a nickel to $17.10 and Franco-Nevada Mining dropped 41 to $19.89.

Junior NovaGold Resources continued its rapid ascent, climbing 11 on the day to close at another 52-week high of $1.20. The California-based company has just kicked off a 10,000-metre drilling program at its promising Donlin high-grade gold deposit in Alaska.

The Metals & Minerals subindex slipped 0.16% to 4099.30 points as Alcan rose 26 to $56.45, Inco fell 20 $25.69, Noranda declined 3 to $15.92, Falconbridge sunk 60 to $16 and Teck-Cominco slipped 17 to $12.70.

Trading activity picked up significantly at Canada’s junior exchange with investors launching a broad-based selloff. The Canadian Venture Exchange lost 12.96 points, or 0.5%, to finish the day at 3,051.01. The Mining Index slumped 9.36 points, or 0.1%, to close at 7,443.69.

Sultan Minerals got a boost after it announced a proposed $150,000 financing aimed at expanding the drill program over the Kena gold property near Nelson, B.C. The company ended the day at 22, up 2 on 2.19 million shares.

National Gold climbed 3 on news that a $570,000 financing is in the works. The Albert Matter-led junior just renegotiated its payment schedule for the $10.5-million purchase of the Salamandra gold property in Mexico. Shares in the company ended the day at 18 on a volume of 1.3 million.

Kenrich Mining touched a 52-week low, losing 1 to 3 on 347,000 shares. The junior holds the Corey property near the Eskay Creek polymetallic mine in B.C. and is evaluating several other properties for possible joint ventures.

Having recently raised $1 million, Poplar Resources is managing to hold recent gains, dropping 1 to 27 on 136,000 shares. The company’s 65%-owned subsidiary is exploring the Bottenbacken platinum-palladium project in central Sweden.