Venture continues decline in April 9 – 14 period

VANCOUVER — There was no end to the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index decline in the April 9-14 period, with the index dropping 21.11 points to 1,459.93 points. The continued decline of the index has left investors hesitant, with average daily trading volume dropping roughly 17 million shares from the week before to an average of 72.5 million shares traded per day.

TomaGold was the big stand-out of the week, jumping 54¢ to 80¢ and trading as high as 96¢ on almost 2 million shares traded after releasing a whopper of a hit from its Monster Lake project near Chibougamau, Quebec. The hole in question, M-12-60, returned 5.7 metres grading 237.6 grams gold per tonne from 69 metres downhole. The hole is part of an 18-hole drill program, but was rush assayed because of the amount of visible gold. Stellar Pacific Ventures, which sold the Monster property to TomaGold in January for $3.3 million in shares, saw 8.7 million shares traded as it climbed 2¢ to 11¢. Stellar already had plans in place to distribute 16.5 million TomaGold shares to shareholders and keep 5.5 million on its books.

Great Quest Metals saw some share price recovery after getting hit hard by the coup in Mali. With some encouraging signs coming from the country Great Quest’s share price climbed 44¢ to end at $1.85. The company is still well off the $3.87 it briefly hit in mid-March after a strong climb starting in January. In early April Great Quest appointed Joel Jeangrand as president and CEO, who has 20 years of experience in natural resources and renewable energy.

Chesapeake Gold was again the biggest value climber, up $1.29 to $13.59 while still releasing no news. The company should be releasing a prefeasibility study shortly on its Metates gold-silver project in Mexico, which hosts 1.18 billion measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.5 gram gold, 13.7 grams silver per tonne, and 0.16% zinc for 19 million contained oz. gold, 519 million oz. silver and 4.2 billion lbs. zinc.

Graphite stocks continued to buck the overall market trend, with Flinders Resources climbing 28¢ to $2.77 on a little under 900,000 shares traded and Northern Graphite climbing 22¢ to $2.95 with 4.9 million shares traded. Northern Graphite announced a strategic partnership with Ottawa-based battery company Panacis, with the two companies agreeing to promote and develop each other’s battery-related products and services. Zenyatta Ventures announced it had intersected a wide zone of graphite at its Albany project in northeastern Ontario, with the company ending up the third-most traded stock with 7.9 million shares traded as it climbed 11¢ to 45¢.

Orko Silver continued to trade briskly after announcing the week before that Pan American Silver would not be continuing with Orko’s La Preciosa silver project in Mexico. On April 5 the company’s share price dropped 77¢ on the news with 5.6 million shares traded, while in the period the company was the most traded stock with 15.9 million shares traded as it declined a further 24¢ to end at $1.21. The company expects a new resource estimate out on the project in the next few weeks and a updated preliminary economic assessment in late July.