U.S. equity markets weak, Jan. 18-21

U.S. markets were closed on Monday Jan. 17 for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. When they re-opened, trading was mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 84.46 points or 0.72% to close the abbreviated Jan. 18-21 trading week at 11,871.84, while the S&P 500 index moved in the opposite direction, dropping 9.89 points or 0.77% to finish at 1,283.35. The Philadelphia Gold and Silver index lost 5.6 points or 2.7% to 200.12, and just eight companies on the New York Stock Exchange touched new 52-week highs.

Mosaic was the second most actively traded stock with more than sixty million shares changing hands following news that private agribusiness conglomerate Cargill Inc. plans to divest its majority 64% stake in the fertilizer giant, a move that could make Mosaic a takeover target. The US$24.3 billion deal involves Cargill using 107 million of its Mosaic shares to pay down debt, and distributing the remaining 179 million shares of Mosaic that it holds to its own shareholders in exchange for Cargill stock. Mosaic shares fell US$9.77 to US$73.20 per share.

Northern Dynasty Minerals topped the list of value gains with an advance of US$1.06 to US$17.89, on no news. High copper prices are attracting more attention to the company’s principal asset, the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in southwestern Alaska, which the company claims is “one of the world’s most extensive undeveloped copper-gold porphyry systems.” Northern Dynasty acquired the Pebble property from Cominco, now Teck, in 2001, and currently co-owns the project with Anglo American.

Aluminum Corporation of China, or Chinalco, advanced 76¢ to US$24.14 per share. Some analysts believe the uptick in the share price was due to an announcement that it planned to take a controlling stake in a rare-earth venture and develop rare earth mines in southern Guangxi province, a plan first disclosed in August.

Constitution Mining posted the second-largest percentage gain of the week, up 18.7% to 19¢ per share on news Jan. 21 that it had signed an agreement with Swiss Mining to start a test-mining production operation at its Gold Sands project in northeastern Peru. Constitution Mining’s drilling program, which located placer ore bodies, was completed within the MIKA 2 Concession last year. Swiss Mining expects to start a six-month test-mining operation within the next four to six weeks, an undertaking that will involve the processing of about 150,000 cubic metres of placer material.