Venture drops in April 2-5 period

VANCOUVER — The shortened April 2 to 5 trading period was not kind to the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index, which dropped 85.35 points to end at 1,481.04 points. The drop effectively put the index back where it was at the beginning of the year, having dropped roughly 215 points since reaching a 2012 high of 1,696 points in late February. Volume was roughly in line with recent weeks at an average of 89.4 million shares traded.

Share price gains were few to be had, with Chesapeake Gold the only stock to gain more than 10¢ in the period. The company rose 30¢ to $12.30 on no news, though it is expected to release a prefeasibility study on its Metates project in Mexico early in the second quarter. In mid-February the company outlined a new Metates resource, which now stands at 1.18 billion measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.5 gram gold per tonne, 13.7 grams silver per tonne, and 0.16% zinc for 19 million oz. gold, 519 million oz. silver and 4.2 billion lbs. zinc.

Waymar Resources was the second highest gainer on the index with a 10¢ rise to 50¢, having traded as high as 70¢ in the period. The company released assay results from three holes it drilled on its Anza property in Colombia’s Antioquia department. Hole 20 hit 41 metres grading 3.85 grams gold from 145 metres depth and hole 21 cut 18 metres grading 14.14 grams gold from 224 metres downhole. The generally lightly-traded company saw almost a million shares traded in the period. The company was recently trading near its 52-week low of 30¢ and briefly traded as high as $1.61 in early 2011.

Moving in the other direction, Orko Silver had the biggest value loss after Pan American Silver decided to opt out of the La Preciosa project in Mexico. Pan American was supposed to deliver a feasibility study on the project by April 13 to earn a 55% of the project and be on the hook for all financing, but Orko has now regained full control of La Preciosa, as well as full responsibility for funding it. The company’s share price dropped $1.01 in the period to $1.45.

Peru-focused Plexmar Resources saw the most activity of the period with 11.9 million shares traded as the penny stock went from 3¢ to as high as 8¢ before ending at 4¢. The company announced that a formal community assembly will convene before the end of April to approve a surface rights access agreement for Plexmar’s Bolsa del Diablo project. Citing progress on project access, Plexmar has cancelled a 15 for 1 share rollback it proposed in mid-February. Plexmar has 228.2 million shares outstanding.

Lomiko Metals was trading briskly after releasing a final assessment report from its 2011 Vines Lake exploration program that recommended further exploration this year on the northern British Columbia project. Last year’s program hit anomalous zinc values as high as 2.4%, with showings concentrated in a 1.5 by 1 km zone. The company, which was trading at as low as 3¢ in December, climbed 5¢ to 17¢ in the period with just under 10 million shares traded.