Vancouver Stock Exchange Little direction to market trading

It’s a seesaw market in Vancouver at present and things aren’t likely to change until after spring breakup. Gold has been stronger because of tensions in the Middle East and so has the Canadian dollar, which is bad news for commodity producers. (They haven’t been screaming too hard yet because prices for many metals are at their highest levels in years. But should this change without an appreciable drop in our dollar, watch out.)

The VSE’s recent policy decision on distributing news releases to media outlets (they won’t anymore) has generated a lot of confusion among listed companies. They will now have to do it themselves. There were several active stocks at presstime, including Alotta Resources, which traded 33 cents higher at 83 cents on a volume of 630,000 shares. The company has property near Teck’s Lamaque mine and also in the Labrador Trough area of Quebec. Windarra Minerals also came on strong, climbing 3 cents to $1.20; and in lower volume, Rea Gold inched ahead 5 cents to $3.10.

Windarra has a 25% interest in the Mishibishu Lake gold project in northern Ontario which looks like a producer; Minnova Inc. and Rea Gold are joint-venture partners in the Samatosum discovery (silver-lead-zinc-gold) near Kamloops, B.C., which will be a producer.

Rex Silver recovered a bit, gaining 10 cents to $1 in moderate volume today. The company will be drilling its Prairie claims in Arizona in the near future. David J. Melvin, whose name has appeared on most of the company’s news releases of late, recently resigned.

Arctic Red Resources, headed up by Teck Exploration President John May, was 7 cents better at 45 cents . The company recently agreed to purchase Double R Inc. in a reverse takeover. This will effectively make Arctic Red a fully operational oil and gas company with undeveloped acreage valued at $50 million(US). May has extensive experience in this area as well as minerals.

Over our report period, Delaware Resource Corp. climbed 86 cents to $10.50 and Miramar Energy jumped 55 cents to $1.55. Delaware (see story) was recently taken over by Colossus Resource Equities, a prize catch which many others failed to recognize. Miramar recently acquired 100% of a Nevada corporation called Orcana which has claims in that state.

Chelsea Resources tumbled 15 cents to $1.50 on news of startup problems at its Spotted Horse mine. (It’s been starting up for some time.) Chelsea has been appointed operator and manager, although it’s not an operating company.

Stardust Ventures, which has a gold property in Nevada, closed the week 30 cents higher at $1.80. Angle Resources, which is being merged with Nexus Resource Corp. and Reward Resources, shot up 25 cents to $1.40. Echo Mountain was the volume leader with a turnover of one million shares. It was off 2 cents to 15 cents . The company can’t explain the volume but notes the stock is “highly liquid,” an understatement if there ever was one.