Venture continues upward climb (September 20, 2010)

Vancouver – Another big week sent the S&P TSX Venture composite index up 65.46 points between Sept. 13 and 17 to close at 1661.96, nearing its 52-week high of 1691. The board kept humming with increased volume, averaging 155 million shares traded daily.
Close to three months of steady gains on the Venture has the bulls finally outweighing the bears again, albeit by a narrow margin. Over the period 96 Venture-listed companies reached new 52-week share price highs while 92 fell to new lows.
The Yukon continues to be hot, with Atac Resources taking the biggest gainer of the week title on updates from its Rau and Connaught projects. The company climbed $1.18 to regain ground lost the week before and end at $6.60 on 5.3 million shares traded. Atac reported that it had completed several more holes at its Rau project, where earlier this month a 65.2 metre intercept grading 4.65 grams gold sent the company’s share price skyward. However, no actual assay results from Rau were released.
Meanwhile at the Connaught project, where Atac has a 50-50 joint venture with Klondike Silver, the company reported results from a sampling program. Several veins were identified, including Sandro’s vein that sampled 5.77 grams gold per tonne and 70.7 grams silver per tonne. Klondike Silver saw 24.4 million shares traded on its way to gaining 2¢ and closing at 5.5¢.
Both Medoro Resources and Romarco Minerals also saw high trading volumes after releasing drill results the week before. But while Romarco moved 27.8 million shares somewhat evenly over the week to end up 16¢ at $2.30, Medoro’s 25-million shares traded were largely from a single-day spike of 23.3 million and ended the week down 21¢ at $1.75.
Canaco Resources had another big week after releasing results from its Handeni project in Tanzania. Drill results from the Magambazi gold discovery included 27 metres grading 4.29 grams gold and 15.6 metres grading 6.6 grams gold, while exploration results from elsewhere on the project seem to indicate that the Handeni gold trend is two parallel trends with a combined strike length of over 15 km. Canaco’s stock price was up $1.17 to end at $3.98 on 12 million shares traded.
Next door to Canaco, Gem International has scooped up a 227.2-sq.-km land package through an option agreement with Eden Gold. Gem became active in Tanzania about a year ago after optioning into some prospective diamond properties in the Shinyanga region of the country. While details about the property’s potential were sparse, the company’s stock price climbed 110% to end up 33¢ at 63¢ on 470,000 shares traded.
Similarly, Wolverine Minerals’ share price spiked after announcing an option agreement on 21 Yukon properties. The company gained 17¢ or 73.9% to end at 40¢ on 2 million shares traded. Details about the properties were again sparse, but they are located in the Dawson Range gold belt of west-central Yukon and in the Finlayson district of eastern Yukon.
On the acquisition front, Continental Minerals signed an agreement to be bought by Chinese metal conglomerate Jinchuan Group for $432 million. The deal has Jinchuan buying all 166 million shares of Continental at $2.60 each, an 18% premium on the stock’s 30-day average trading price. On the day the news was announced Continental’s share price went up 28¢ on 13.5 million shares traded, ending the week at $2.58.