Venture continues decline in April 16-20 period

VANCOUVER — Another week meant another drop for the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index, which fell 61.98 points to 1,397.95 points in the April 16-20 period. The index is now sitting at its lowest point since a very brief dip to 1,305.53 points last September, with the next lowest level being the 1,342-point low hit in the summer of 2010 that then ushered in a period of impressive growth. Volume varied through the week, ending with an average of 81.8 million shares traded daily.

GTA Resources and Mining got a boost after releasing more positive drill results from the Northshore property in Ontario’s Hemlo-Schreiber greenstone belt. The company, which is working to earn-in 51% of the property from Balmoral Resources, reported that hole 14 hit 240 metres grading 1.41 grams gold per tonne from 8 metres depth, or 0.99 gram gold capped, and included half-metre intercepts grading 132 grams gold and 120 grams gold. GTA’s share price climbed 36¢ to $1.16 with 4.3 million shares traded, having climbed 16¢ the week before. Balmoral dropped 7¢ to 67¢.

Pacific Booker Minerals continued to climb on no news, up $1.90 to reach $11.50 and become the highest value climber of the period. The tightly-held company, with only 12.2 million shares out and no warrants, saw a total of 44,850 shares traded in the period. Pacific Booker looks to be finally moving ahead with its Morrison copper-gold-molybdenum project in northern British Columbia, having applied for a mining lease for Morrison in late March. The company started work on a feasibility study in 2003.

Calibre Mining, which shot out of obscurity in January on some impressive drill results from Nicaragua, came crashing back down after the second round of results failed to impress. Highlights from the latest round of results include 146.5 metres grading 0.65 gram gold and 0.27% copper, and 172.4 metres averaging 0.48 gram gold and 0.24% copper; compared with January results that included 261.7 metres carrying 0.78 gram gold and 0.3% copper from surface. The company’s share price dropped 19¢ to end at 24¢ with 21.6 million shares traded, putting the company close to where it was trading before the January results.

Peru-focused Intigold Mines shot up after announcing that it and St. Elias Mines would start exploring the Chance E mineral claim in the coming weeks. The claim block sits next to St. Elias’s Tesoro gold project in southwestern Peru, with geophysical and satellite imagery indicating that structural lineaments coincident with gold mineralization on the Tesoro project extend to the Chance E claim. Intigold can earn 60% of the claim by paying $500,000 to St. Elias, issuing 1 million shares and spending $1 million on exploration over three years. Intigold climbed 14¢ or just over 50% to end at 41¢.

Lumina Copper dropped $3.24 to end at $13.05 after trading as low as $12 following news that Argentina would be nationalizing 51% of a petroleum company there. Analysts believe the asset seizure was a one-off and Lumina is not threatened, but the move still heightened the risk perception of a country already seen as risky. Argentina’s move likely delayed any potential takeover of Lumina, a clear acquisition target.