TSX Venture continues slow slide, April 30-May 4

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell 1.47% to end the trading week at 772.24. The index has been on a three-week slide since mid-April, when it traded briefly above 800 points. It spent the first three months of 2018 trading mostly above 800.

Shares of Cobalt 27 rose 84¢ to $12.49. The company recently acquired a 1.5% gross revenue royalty on the Flemington cobalt-scandium-nickel project, 370 km west of Sydney, Australia, and held under option by Australian Mines. The project has a maiden resource of 2.7 million inferred tonnes grading 0.1% cobalt, with only 1% of the total project area tested so far.

SRK Consulting, which finished the Flemington resource estimate in October 2017, determined the project’s mineralization continues from the orebody at Clean TeQ’s Sunrise nickel-cobalt project. Sunrise has 101 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.65% nickel and 0.1% cobalt for 660,000 tonnes nickel and 106,000 tonnes cobalt. The two projects are separated by a tenement boundary.

Shares of Novo Resources rose 36¢ to $5.40. In April the company bulk sampled the Comet Well zone at its Karratha gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region for the first time. The company says it found numerous gold nuggets, ranging from 3 mm to 2 cm. The company also noted that despite two stages of crushing, most nuggets remained intact and unscathed. It added that processing the bulk sample was taking longer than expected due to various complications, including unexpected rock hardness and more screening steps. The company expects its grade results by late May.

Last year the company optioned its Tuscarora gold property in Nevada to American Pacific Mining, which announced in April that it had permission to drill. The company will begin a 19-hole, staged drill program shortly. The property was last drilled by Newcrest in the late 1990s.

Shares of Mineral Mountain Resources fell 47.7% to 34¢. The company recently reported results from three initial holes dropped into its Standby Mine gold target in the Rochford District of South Dakota’s Black Hills. In the latest assays, the company intercepted 2.8 grams gold per tonne over 6 metres from 330 metres downhole, 1.1 grams gold over 6.4 metres from 300 metres downhole and 2 grams gold over 3 metres from 100 metres downhole. The property also has three favourable historic drillholes, highlights of which include: 2.3 grams gold over 12 metres from 1,000 metres downhole, and 10.23 grams gold over 3 metres from 1,800 metres downhole. The company plans to drill nine more holes into the Standby target. TNM