Venture sees slight gains over July 19-23 week

Vancouver – The S&P/TSX Venture composite index managed four days of straight gains following an early week dip to close up 15.49 points at 1,394.98. Daily trading volumes increased for another week to an average of 95.3 million.

Despite the overall gain, the market is still decidedly bearish: 18 Venture-listed companies hit new highs while fully 230 fell to new lows.

North Country Gold‘s share price shot up 11.5¢ or 45.1% to close the week at 37¢ following some impressive initial drill results from its Three Bluffs gold project in Nunavut. The company went public in April and has since been busy drilling on its 2,256-sq.-km land package 300 km northeast of Baker Lake. The best drill result from Three Bluffs was 42.1 metres grading 5.88 grams gold per tonne from 7 metres depth, whiles other results included 3.5 metres grading 10.2 grams gold, 25 metres carrying 4.17 grams gold and 31.9 metres averaging 2.27 grams gold.

Rare earth element-based companies Rare Element Resources and Quest Rare Minerals both saw strong stock price gains a week after China announced measures to restrict the supply of the elements. Neither company released news during the week but the two had the biggest price gains of the week on the Venture, with Rare Element Resources up 66¢ or 27.4% to close at $3.07 and Quest Rare Minerals up 57¢ or 27.4% to close at $2.69.

Antares Minerals saw solid gains following the release of a preliminary economic assessment for its Haquira copper-moly-gold project in southern Peru. The PEA outlined a mine with a net present value of US$1.07 billion, producing 4.25 million lbs. of copper, 5 million lbs. of molybdenum and 27,000 oz. gold a year for 20 years. The 130,000-tonnes-per-day operation has an after-tax internal rate of return of 16.4% using a long-term copper price of US$2.25 per lb. and a discount rate of 8%. The company’s stock price was up 30¢ or 13.1% to close at $2.59.

Creso Exploration continued to see significant stock activity and price swings as the company released preliminary results from its Minto gold project in Ontario. The company gained 20.5¢ in two days but lost 11.5¢ in the other three to end the week at 58¢, up 20.4% on 9.1 million shares traded. The company, which changed its name from Willowstar Capital in June, has extended two holes on its property. The extension of hole 2, which earlier hit 65.7 metres of 18.2 grams gold and 79.6 metres of 4.61 grams gold, hit a further 7.6 metres grading 5.82 grams gold at 423 metres depth; the extension of hole one still awaits assaying.

The first three reported holes in a 10,000-metre drill program helped propel Premium Exploration‘s stock price up 12.5¢ or 38.5% to close the week at 45¢. The company is busy working through a drill program on its Friday-Petsite gold project in central Idaho, with the latest results extending the strike length by 200 metres in the ‘lower block’. Drill results included 203 metres grading 0.98 gram gold from surface, 275 metres carrying 1.84 grams gold from 14.6 metres and 157.9 metres averaging 2.23 grams gold from 221 metres depth.

Good gold intercepts from its Coldstream project in Ontario did not stop Foundation Resources from losing market share this week. The company, exploring the property with Alto Ventures, reported the first results from a June drill program including 34.6 metres grading 1.93 grams gold, 12.5 metres grading 1.06 grams gold and 13 metres averaging 3.06 grams gold. Foundation’s share price slid 8.5¢ or 21.4% to close at 32.5¢. Alto was up a penny to close at 6¢.