Venture stumbles in Feb. 22-25 week

Vancouver – A shortened week filled with fluctuating oil prices and mid-east unrest saw the S&P TSX Venture Exchange drop 48.06 points between Feb. 22 and 25 to close at 2,375.62 as two days of losses outweighed two days of gains.

Especially high volumes in the first two days were balanced by lower volumes in the latter half and averaged out to 194 million shares traded daily. The overall point drop on the Venture led to only 96 companies hitting 52-week trading highs while 34 hit new lows.

Despite not releasing any news, Olivut Resources saw the biggest value gain of the week. The company climbed 64¢ or 49.6% to end at $1.93 on just over a million shares traded. The prior week Olivut announced it planned to explore for diamonds on the Itapoty project in central Paraguay after signing a non-binding letter of intent with Latin American Minerals. The tentative deal would see Olivut earning in 50% of the property by completing a million dollars in work. Olivut already has diamond properties in Canada and Uruguay.

Silver hits in Mexico had International Northair Mines climbing strongly. The company was the most traded as well as the biggest percentage gainer as it rose 23¢ or 209% on a total of 33 million shares to close at 34¢. Northair released results from two reverse circulation holes at its La Cigarra silver project in north-central Mexico that included 80.5 metres grading 123.5 grams silver per tonne from 46 metres depth in hole 2 and 18 metres grading 54.6 grams silver in hole 1. The previous drill program was the first on the property and identified three mineralized targets.

Copper Fox Metals was up 36¢ to close at $1.70 on 12.3 million shares traded after releasing long copper hits from its Schaft Creek project in northwest British Columbia. Hole 405 hit 484.3 metres grading 0.47% copper, 0,34 gram gold per tonne, 0.02% molybdenum and 2.22 grams silver from 11 metres depth while hole 406 returned 190.5 metres carrying 0.21%  and minor gold, moly and silver showings from 9 metres downhole. The company also welcomed news that BC had given environmental approval for the Northwest Transmission Line that is expected to bring inexpensive power to a number of major mine project in the area.

Continuing its upward trend, Batero Gold climbed 46¢ to close at $4.65 after gaining $1.39 the week before. The company did not release new results, but the week before it announced results from its Colombian Batero-Quinchia property that included 591.5 metres grading 0.72 gram gold and 0.13% copper and 398.9 metres averaging 0.46 gram gold and 0.09% copper.

Atac Resources was up 53¢ to end at $7.15 on 550,000 shares traded. The company closed a $25 million non-brokered private placement, issuing 3.3 million shares at $7.50 each. Atac has not traded above $7.50 since the end of November when it released drill results from its Osiris target in the Yukon and dropped $1.59 in three days to $5.80.