TSX falls during the Aug 20-24 week

The S&P/TSX Composite Index slipped 7.66 points during the Aug. 20-24 trading week to close at 12,082.23.

During the week, investors took in a report suggesting U.S. manufacturing is faltering, and signs that the Federal Reserve will inject another economic stimulus if the outlook doesn’t improve. 

The report indicated orders for durable goods rose 4.2% in July, ahead of expectations of 2.5%. But after stripping out transportation orders, durable goods, which are items meant to last at least three years, fell 0.4%.

The S&P/TSX Global Gold Index added 14.54 points to close at 314.65 as the spot price of gold surged US$54.90 per oz. to US$1,670.70. This helped gold miners stay in the positive territory as Goldcorp gained 2% to end at $40.07; Barrick Gold moved up 1.8% to $37.44; Yamana Gold added 1.4% to $16.63.

The latter also reported that it completed the acquisition of Extorre Gold Mines and announced results from its 2012 exploration program at the newly-discovered Corpo Sul zone near the main pit at its Chapada open-pit gold-copper mine in Brazil.

The diversified miners didn’t do as well as the S&P/TSX Capped Diversified Metals Index gave back 7.02 points to end at 858.60.

White Tiger Gold was the week’s biggest percentage gainer, moving up 67% to 10¢ after the junior closed its proposed loan transaction with Unique Goals International, an entity owned by shareholder and creditor, Sergey Yanchukov.

White Tiger owed Unique $20.4 million at the end of July, which loans expired in May 2012. But under the new agreement, the maturity date has been extended to January 31, 2015. In return, White Gold has provided Unique Goals 204 million share purchase warrants, exercisable at 10¢ a share for four years. Yanchukov now owns 17% of the company’s issued and outstanding shares on an undiluted basis and 45% on a partially diluted basis, assuming he exercises his 207 million warrants held.

Talison Lithium was the most actively traded stock and one of the top percentage gainers after announcing Rockwood Holdings is offering $6.50 per share to buy the Australia-based producer, to expand its own lithium division. The offer represents a 53% premium to Talison’s Aug. 22 close, and values the company at $724 million on a fully diluted basis. Its board has unanimously recommended its shareholders to vote in favour of the deal. Talison gained $2.01 or 45% to close at $6.46 apiece on 30.8 million shares traded.  

Strong drill results lifted Scorpio Mining up 42% to 85¢ apiece. The junior reported more intercepts from drilling along a new trend at its El Cajon deposit near Cosala in Mexico’s Sinaloa state. Notable hits from within the new Emma trend include: 1.6 metres of 3.23 grams gold, 2,510 grams silver per tonne and 10.25% copper; and 15.7 metres of 0.57 gram gold, 439 grams silver and 1.87% copper.